How’s your horse feeling?

It’s easy to know how humans are feeling, whether because they can talk or because they can point to the handy Wong-Baker Faces Scale.

But how do we know if animals are in pain?

Using tech, of course

You could teach an animal to “talk” (and become Instagram famous) with those viral buttons — but why do that when AI can interpret its body language?

• Research shows animals do communicate how they’re feeling with facial expressions.

Several AI tools are being developed to interpret these expressions, according to Science: for instance, by analyzing pictures of animals before and after surgery, or by(safely) inducing mild discomfort.

• The systems focus on stuff like subtle differences in a horse’s jaw muscles, nostril shape, and ear positions that even an expert might miss.
• For animals that don’t really have facial expressions, like chickens, an AI model could interpret different levels of body heat.

AI models are also being used to analyze animal noises, listening for distress or attempting actual translation.

• E.g., birds have distinct calls for songs and warnings, while prairie dogs “have a system of nouns and adjectives to describe predators,” per Axios.

The tech could be applied…  

… across livestock and pets.

Researchers are about to release an app that can interpret a cat’s pain level by looking for tension in certain muscles. Finally, a way to decipher the imperceptible difference between an unhappy cat and any other cat.

Science also suggests that tech like this could be used in equestrian competitions to reward riders of happier horses, encouraging competitors to treat their animals well.

Once again, the march of technological progress is driven by dressage.