Center for the Humanities Presents: Anna Guasco, "Quoth Leviathan Nevermore"
Join us for a talk by Anna Guasco, a recipient of the Critical AI Literacy Fellowship, that critically examines emerging efforts to use AI to translate whale sounds and to speak to whales. These much-hyped efforts promise "first contact" with whales.
Although these efforts are often framed as unprecedented, this talk explores long-standing desires to speak to whales, as well as existing cultural modes of interspecies communication with whales. Guasco traces the emergence of this newest iteration of tech-based efforts to communicate with cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), as well as contextualizes the metaphors of discovery, frontiers, and outer space exploration that accompany storytelling about whales and AI. Efforts to use AI to interpret and speak with whales, ultimately, say much more about humans than they do about whales.
This event is being co-presented as part of OSU's People and Nature Seminar Series.
Anna Guasco is Assistant Professor of Marine Studies at Oregon State University. Her interdisciplinary research examines nature-society relations, with particular focus on oceans, wildlife, and environmental justice. She received her Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Cambridge.
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