Empathy Conversation across species
This project combines environmental data with LLM technology, creating an interactive installation/web where visitors engage in conversations with endangered species, transforming abstract ecological issues into emotionally resonant experiences.
Timeline
Apr - May, 2024
Category
Critical Design
AI-driven Interaction
Narrative Design
Role
Researcher
Interaction Designer
Team
Zheng Cao
ChiaWei
There is a lack of empathy in ecological education
We are often taught to protect the environment, but rarely encouraged to question why it matters. When it comes to endangered species, the connection to our daily lives can feel distant, making environmental protection seem abstract rather than urgent. As a result, people may understand the need to protect nature, but lack a deeper emotional or personal connection to it.
This gap is a common challenge in ecological education. This project addresses this issue by exploring how to foster ecological empathy between humans and endangered species through a post-anthropocentric design approach.
Specifically, it asks:
How might we build meaningful empathy between humans and other species?
Endangered Species in MA
Massachusetts is home to a wide variety of plants and animals. Some species have their most stable populations here, and some are relatively common. Others are unique to Massachusetts and occur naturally in the state.
180 species of animals and 273 species of plants are protected under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. These 453 native species are listed as Endangered (E), Threatened (T), or of Special Concern (SC) and are tracked in our database. These species are either at risk or may become at risk of extinction. Rarity in the state, population trend, and overall threat are the main criteria used to determine extinction risk.
Ideation
How can we build empathy between humans and other species?
We began with a simple idea: conversation.
Human relationships are built through communication, through listening, sharing, and understanding one another’s experiences. Engaging in open-ended dialogue allows people to perceive emotions, perspectives, and stories beyond their own.
So we asked:
What if endangered species could speak?
If animals or plants could communicate with us, would we begin to understand their emotions, experiences, struggles, or even the stories they carry?
This project explores whether conversation can become a bridge, transforming distant ecological knowledge into a personal, emotional connection.
Building Personality
To make the experience of interacting with endangered species feel natural and real, we developed personas for each species based on their ecological characteristics. These personas guided the creation of prompts used to train the conversations.
These personas guided the creation of prompts used to train the conversations.
How to achieve
This interaction flow enables real-time conversation between visitors and non-human species. Visitors speak to a plant or animal, and their speech is converted into text and sent to the ChatGPT API. The system generates a contextual response, which is then transformed into audio and delivered back to the user, creating a seamless, conversational experience across species.
Try to talk to endangered species
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