Scientists translate pig grunts into emotions for the first time

In a potential breaththrough for monitoring animal wellbeing, scientists say they have translated pig grunts into emotions for the first time. Researchers trained an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm with 7,414 recordings of pig noises, gathered throughout the life stages of 411 pigs – including slaughter. The algorithm could potentially be used to build an app for pig farmers that detects whether the animals are happy just from the noise they're making. With enough data to train the algorithm, the method could also be used to better understand the emotions of other mammals, experts say. This image shows the classification of pig calls to'valence and context', based on the algorithm. The research was led by the University of Copenhagen, the ETH Zurich and the France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE).