Updated 09.06.2026
For 28 years Joyce Poole '74 has been watching and listening to elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park.
Using AI to ‘talk to animals’ might make us feel clever – but what, if anything, does it do for them?
As ethologists increasingly use AI in their research, they grapple with using the technology responsibly. Drs. Joyce Poole and Mickey Pardo of ElephantVoices speak to Amy Martin at The Guardian.
Elephants May Have Names, And AI is Helping Us Hear Them
Mark Derho writes about our 2024 discovery that African savannah elephants use individually specific vocal labels when addressing one another. You can access the paper via ElephantVoices Publications.
Do Elephant Have Names?
In this episode of Sentience Daniel Toker interviews ElephantVoices Senior Scientist, Dr. Mickey Pardo, about the inner lives of elephants and other animals and reflects on how this might change our relationship with them. "What if we’ve been dramatically underestimating what it’s like to be another animal? In this episode of Sentience, animal cognition researcher Mickey Pardo, PhD takes us inside the minds of other animals—from woodpeckers that track relationships between other birds to elephants that appear to use name-like calls to address one another. We explore how scientists can investigate the private mental lives of animals, what the famous mirror test actually tells us about self-awareness, and why humans have repeatedly moved the goalposts whenever another species demonstrates an ability we once thought was uniquely ours. We also dive into the future of animal communication: could AI uncover hidden patterns in the vocalizations of elephants, dolphins, and whales that humans have completely missed? And if animals have richer inner lives than we've assumed, what does that mean for how we understand intelligence, consciousness, and our relationship with the other minds sharing the planet with us?"
The largest video and audio library of elephant behaviors.