We’re on the Cusp of Communicating with Whales: Legal and Ethical Ramifications
Join a special World Oceans Day discussion at The Explorers Club HQ – Featuring David Gruber of Project CETI and Dr. César Rodríguez Garavito of NYU’s MOTH Program.
Exploring one of the most ambitious scientific discoveries of our time, Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) brings together biologists, linguists, roboticists, and artificial intelligence experts working to understand what animals are saying to each other. Using advanced sensing systems and machine learning, CETI scientists are making significant progress decoding the communication of sperm whales. CETI’s goal is for its findings to contribute to further protections for whales and marine life and to carry on the legacy of the “Save the Whales” movement bringing new human understanding to the natural world around us.
Recognizing that understanding another species raises profound ethical questions, CETI and legal scholars from New York University School of Law’s More‑Than‑Human Life (MOTH) Program formed a collaboration to publish on the Legal Impact of AI-Assisted Studies of Animal Communication and explore how CETI’s findings can contribute to legal protections for oceans and whales. CETI also supported MOTH’s efforts to establish ethical and legal guardrails for the emerging field of interspecies communication.
This lecture with Dr. David Gruber (FR’14), Founder and Lead of Project CETI and Dr. César Rodríguez Garavito, Founding director of the MOTH Program at NYU School of Law, explores what it might mean for humanity to one day understand another species, examining the implications for animal intelligence, Indigenous perspectives, conservation, and our evolving relationship with life in the ocean.
This in-person event at the Explorers Club Headquarters will include an audience Q&A. Please note, there will be no livestream for this program.
RESERVATIONS
This will be an in-person lecture at Explorers Club Headquarters.
In-person tickets are $20 for Members, and $35 for the General Public.
Check-in will begin at 6:00 pm, with a beer and wine reception from 6:00 – 7:00 pm
David Gruber
David Gruber is Founder & Lead of Project CETI, a nonprofit organization and flagship National Geographic Program using machine learning and gentle robotics to translate sperm whale communication. With a team of 50+ scientists across eight disciplines, CETI is the largest and most interdisciplinary interspecies communication effort to date. Among its findings thus far, CETI has identified a whale phonetic alphabet, vowel- and diphthong-like patterns in sperm whales and developed the first translative models for whale communication. CETI’s efforts are revealing how breakthroughs in animal translation can deepen human empathy and reshape our relationship with nature. A National Geographic Explorer and Distinguished Professor at CUNY, Gruber’s prior work focused on coral reefs and climate science, discovering over 200 biofluorescent fish species and biofluorescence in sea turtles. He holds the Lagrange Prize and the Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize for advances and leadership in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem protection.
César Rodríguez-Garavito
César Rodríguez-Garavito is an Earth rights scholar, field lawyer, and the founding director of the More-Than-Human (MOTH) Life Program at NYU School of Law, where he serves as a Professor of Law and Director of the Earth Rights Research and Action (TERRA) Clinic. His work pioneers legal frameworks and advocacy for climate justice, Indigenous rights, and "more- than-human rights," a term he proposes for the rights of nature. His ongoing MOTH initiatives include a partnership with Project CETI on the legal implications of AI-assisted translation of whale communication, collaborations with Indigenous leaders and communities of the Amazon and the Pacific Island nations to protect forest and ocean beings, and work with SPUN and the Fungi Foundation on legal actions to protect the fungal kingdom of life. His recent publications include More-Than-Human Rights: An Ecology of Law, Thought and Narrative for Earthly Flourishing (NYU, ed.), “What if We Understood What Animals are Saying?” (Ecology Law Quarterly) and Climate Change on Trial: Mobilizing Human Rights Litigation to Accelerate Climate Action (Cambridge University Press).
