Researchers are now making substantial efforts in developing AI capabilities that will help give evaluative measures for animal emotions and even pain. One such project is Intellipig, which was developed by the University of the West of England in Bristol and Scotland’s Rural College.
The system analyzes images of a pig’s face. It aims to warn farmers about visible signs of pain, illness, or emotional distress that may afflict their animals. The Intellipig system is directed at improving the animals’ well-being on the farm, concentrating on the facial cues.
The researchers from the University of Haifa are, in another important study, training the AI to detect the suffering of animals, mostly through their facial expressions. A distinctive feature of this research is that in pigs, facial movements share with humans some 38% of the same expression.
This is quite an interesting chance of understanding and interpreting their feelings. For this, the process of training includes careful observation and analysis of the animals under different settings.
In Brazil, a researcher from the University of São Paulo took a different approach, investigating photographs of horses taken before and after surgery and after pain medications were administered. A feature of those images was noted by the researcher in the development of the AI system, which used the horses’ eyes, ears, and mouths as primary indicators. The abstract patterns learned by the AI enabled it, on its own, to accurately recognize pain in horses with an impressive 88% success rate. This is more than a promising CV for AI, collating animal welfare and their emotional status, which would ensure future accountability for the needs of the same from the farmers and caretakers.