Earth Species Project Secures $17M in Grants to Apply Frontier AI To Decoding Animal Communication

We’re excited to announce that we’ve secured two significant grants – a $10M grant from technology entrepreneur and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and a $7M grant from Waverley Street Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit investing at the intersection of climate solutions and community priorities. You can read more about the funding in Forbes here. 

The $17M in new core funds will be used to rapidly scale ESP’s AI research team and contribute to our ability to catalyze transformative cultural change and a deeper appreciation and understanding of the natural world. The support comes as we kick off an ambitious fundraising effort to fuel AI-driven breakthroughs in animal communication by 2030. 

“Humans are at an incredible moment with AI, in which everything that can be translated will be. Just as the telescope taught us that Earth is not the center of the universe, our hope is that this research will teach us that humanity is not the center of life on earth. We envision a renewed relationship with nature that allows the diversity of all life to thrive," said Aza Raskin, co-founder and President of Earth Species Project

The funding will help drive three key program priorities:

• Advance fundamental AI research – ESP is developing the first multimodal foundation models — the GPT-4’s of animal communication — for animal language processing. These species-agnostic models will be used to drive ESP’s research, supporting its mission to decode animal communication and begin to understand animal intelligence. They will also be made available to the broader field to accelerate scientific and ecology workflows.
• Power a new scientific revolution – ESP plays an important role as a bridge between frontier AI and animal communication research. The development of multimodal foundation models will significantly drive progress in the field at large, and enable major leaps forward in conservation science, ethology, and in the study of intelligence and consciousness. 
• Catalyze culture change – ESP believes the existential climate and biodiversity crises the world is facing are driven, in large part, by a fundamental disconnect between humans and the rest of nature. By decoding animal communication, ESP's research will open a window into the minds of our fellow species to inspire a fundamental mindset shift in humans towards a renewed relationship with the natural world. From there, the organization’s work will support vital efforts to understand and preserve biodiversity, and even begin to explore new approaches to governance that provide agency for other species.

"The Earth Species Project’s visionary pursuit of meaningful connections with nature inspires new ways of understanding and engaging with our planet, offering a path forward in addressing climate change."

-Jared Blumenfeld, President of Waverley Street Foundation.

Earth Species Project builds on many decades of bioacoustics and behavioral ecology research, which has uncovered complex communication systems in other species (Marmosets, African elephants, sperm whales, for example). As such, we partner closely with leading ethologists and cognitive neuroscientists studying animal behavior, cognition, and communication to provide powerful AI models that allow them to explore their data in new ways and at unprecedented scale, accuracy, and speed. 

"As we advance our understanding of intelligence, both human and non-human, we unlock profound opportunities to reshape our relationship with the planet. Earth Species Project is at the forefront of this frontier, using AI not only to decode animal communication but to redefine how we see and value all life."

-Reid Hoffman, entrepreneur and venture capitalist

Reid Hoffman is an ongoing supporter of Earth Species Project. Waverley Street Foundation joins other prior philanthropic supporters including: Paul G Allen Family Foundation, Steve Jurvetson, Chris Larsen, Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, National Geographic and more – all committed to the potential of ESP’s research and ability to fundamentally change human beings’ understanding of our place in the natural world. 

To learn more, please visit: https://www.earthspecies.org/. If you’re interested in supporting our mission, please reach out to Jane Lawton, Earth Species Project’s Director of Impact at jane@earthspecies.org.