FAQ
Why are you making Cat Royale?
We’ve always been fascinated by the ways that technology can transform our lives, especially at moments when that technology is still undeveloped, is less well understood and can be hard to grasp.
Artificial Intelligence is already in widespread use but we can’t see it and every definition of AI is slightly different from the next one. We started working on Cat Royale because we want to learn more about AI and explore what it might mean when this technology comes into our homes and affects us and our loved ones. All three of us are pet owners and we’re curious what cats might make of an autonomous system. How much can we really know about what our pets are thinking? How do we know that they are happy?
Technology is amazing but we’re sceptical of grand claims that technology can make us happier (Exhibit A: Facebook). What starts out as a promise of a brave new world can mutate into an insidious world of inadvertent harms and confused motives.
Cat Royale will let us see AI in action and grapple with what it means for us and our loved ones to live with machines that are ‘learning’ about us and adapting to us.
Sign up to our newsletter to follow the project
Where has this footage come from?
We invited a group of volunteers to film their cats at home - playing with toys and just generally going about their business. We’ve turned these videos into thousands of short video clips - each about 8 seconds long - for you to watch and tag.
What improvements do you think this might bring to cat welfare?
We want Cat Royale to improve our understanding of cats and how we can treat them better. Automatic feeders and robotic toys are already common for cats. Videos of cats riding on robot vacuum cleaners are a whole genre on the web.
If cats are going to be living more closely with technology, including autonomous systems, it’s important to understand how cats experience that relationship.
Through watching the cats and learning about their different needs and personalities, we will be able to study how they interact. Our ambition is to learn how to better understand cats and their needs.
How will you keep the cats safe?
Keeping animals involves a relationship of care and love between humans and pets in which both should benefit.
We’re planning to host Ghostbuster, Pumpkin and Clover who are being kindly lent to us by their proud owner Ed. We are building a range of systems and procedures to ensure their safety. The whole project will be assessed by the Animal Welfare and Ethics Review Body at the University of Nottingham before it goes ahead.
Our approach has been informed by Advancing Ethical Principles for Non-Invasive, Respectful Research with Nonhuman Animal Participants (Van Patter and Blattner). These principles are non-maleficence, beneficence and voluntary participation.
Our goal is to make a utopia for cats: an ideal world where every possible comfort and luxury is provided. The light levels, the temperature, the type of bedding, the number of feeding places and viewing platforms will be at the optimum level for the cats.
The project is being made in consultation with an animal behaviourist and with guidance from the RSPCA. We’re also grateful to Dr Lauren Finka (a feline welfare and behaviour scientist for Cats Protection) for her valuable advice.
Cat safety and wellbeing has been of paramount importance since we started work in 2021 and we are building a range of systems and procedures into the work. The cats will be monitored constantly while they are participating in the project by a trained member of the team. They will only allow the robot arm to carry out a task if they are sure that the cats are safe and they will stop the robot arm from carrying out tasks if there is any threat to the cats’ safety.
The cats will stay in the room for twelve days. If the cats show any sign of distress we will immediately step in to care for them. Each cat has their own personality and their own needs: we will pay careful attention to each one of them to ensure that they have a great time in the best kind of cat hotel there can be.
What are the research goals behind this?
From decoding the vocalisations of dolphins and marmoset monkeys to recognising when sheep are in pain, developments in AI have brought new leaps in interspecies communication.
Alongside this, studies using robots and mechanical systems have helped scientists to better understand the behaviour of animals such as bees and cockroaches.
As part of the research underlying this project we aim to identify the potential positive influence that automated systems and AI may have in the care of companion animals, in particular with better understanding of cats and their needs. And we hope to understand the limitations and challenges of these technologies in care and welfare settings.
Researchers on the project so far include Professor Steve Benford and Professor Joel Fischer from the University of Nottingham, Dr Kate Devlin from Kings’ College London and Professor Clara Mancini from the Open University.
Steve Benford on Cat Royale: “These kinds of groundbreaking interdisciplinary projects can shed important new perspectives on the future wellbeing of cats and humans and how they both will encounter robots in the future. We work with artists because they often ask challenging questions that invite us to think in new ways.”