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AI Can Now Read Your Cat's Pain
Thanks to researchers, new AI tech is delving into feline feelings to see when cats could need medical help.
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December 8, 2023
AI Can Now Read Your Cat’s Pain
Thanks to researchers, new AI tech is delving into feline feelings to see when cats could need medical help.
By Tulika Bose & Sophie Bushwick
[A cat with mottled white, brown and black fur looks straight at the camera]
[Illustration of a Bohr atom model spinning around the words Science Quickly with various science and medicine related icons around the text]
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Sophie Bushwick: Can you tell what a cat is thinking, just from looking at it?
Tulika Bose: Probably not! Cats evolved to be solitary hunters stalking their prey, not social animals like us humans.
Bushwick: And that poker face might be handy while you’re out stalking prey, but it’s a real problem if humans are trying to figure out whether their pets are in pain. So that’s why researchers are trying to read more into feline feelings
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Bose: — [sings] using artificial intelligence!
Bushwick: —[sings] using artificial intelligence! As they love to do. I’m Sophie Bushwick, tech editor at Scientific American.
Bose: I’m Tulika Bose, multimedia editor.
Bushwick: And you’re listening to Tech Quickly, the version of Scientific American’s Science Quickly podcast that just wants to boop AI on the nose.
Bose: Cute.
[INTRO MUSIC]
Bushwick: Right now, if you want to see whether a cat’s in pain, you have to take a quiz called the Glasgow Feline Composite Measure Pain Scale.
Bose: Interesting.
Bushwick: It’s also just called Glasgow scale.
Bose: Ok, hmmm.
Bushwick: But The question is, what’s on the scale?
Bose: Yeah, what is on the scale?
Bushwick: Well, I just happen to have printed out a couple copies for us to peruse!
Bose: You did not.
Bushwick: I did indeed.
Bose: Wow
Bushwick: Take a look, take a look at this.
Bose: This looks like a Buzzfeed quiz for cat pain, but uh —
Bushwick: Yeah, the least favorite kind of Buzzfeed quiz.
Bose: Yeah, the least favorite. Ok, wow. So I see some little cartoon cats here.
Bushwick: Uh huh.
Bose: And I see their little ears squashed, or upright —
Bushwick: — And then you have to say which one is your cat.
Bose: Yeah! And then, I see uh, a second little set of cartoon cats here, and their little mouths look to be squished in different ways too.
Bushwick: Yeah, so you choose the picture that best matches the cat. And you also answer questions about its behavior —
Bose: — The cat —
Bushwick: How it responds to being pet —
Bose: Ok, ok.
Bushwick: And then each one of those questions gets a little number associated with it. Higher or lower, depending on how much pain it indicates. And then you add it all up at the end to get your pain score.
Bose: [Flips page.] This looks kind of hard actually.
Bushwick: It’s tricky! I mean can you tell the difference between a cat that is tense / crouched —
Bose: No!
Bushwick: And one that is rigid / hunched?
Bose: No that would be like the same thing to me!
Bushwick: It sounds exactly the same.
Bose: Yeah, exactly!
Bushwick: So it’s pretty subjective, you have to make some judgment calls…
Bose: mmhmmm
Bushwick: And if you’re not a veterinarian, who sees cats and uses this scale all the time, it could be an issue.
Bose: Absolutely. More subjective right?
Bushwick: Mmhmm exactly.
Bose: So the idea is that AI might be able to do better?
Bushwick: Or at the very least, it could do it faster and way more easily than an untrained human could.
Bose: So I know freelance science writer Leila Okahata wrote about a study that put AI to the pain-detection test.
Bushwick: That’s right. Researchers started with photos of 84 cats that were being admitted to a veterinary/animal hospital in Germany —
Bose: Interesting —
Bushwick: — and then they gave these cats a pain score based on the Glasgow scale that we talked about —
Bose: Right —
Bushwick: And also on the amount of pain you’d expect a cat to be in for whatever ailment or injury brought them in, you know like a bone fracture. That’s gonna be pretty painful.
Bose: Yowch.
Bushwick: You mean “meow-ch”?
Bose: Uh, no, no I don’t.
Bushwick: [Laughs]
Bose: Ok. diabolical laugh. Diabolical laugh.
Bushwick: I’m not laughing at the cat’s pain. I’m laughing at the cat’s pun.
Bose: Uh, wow. Did you just make another pun?
Bushwick: I can’t help myself.
Bose: Oh my gosh, ok, ok.
Bushwick: [Continues laughing.]
Bose: Ok, ok.
Bushwick: I’m just littering the script with them! [Continues laughing.]
Bose: Yes you are!
Bushwick: [Continues laughing.] Littering? Litterbox?
Bose: Oh my God. You did it again.
Bushwick: Yeah. Anyway, the photos are labeled with the pain scores, and the researchers fed them into two different machine learning algorithms.
Bose: Interesting.
Bushwick: One broke down each photo in great detail, by examining four dozen specific sites on the cats’ faces. These are called called landmarks.
Bose: Got it.
Bushwick: The second AI program was a deep learning model that just looked at each photo as a whole.
Bose: Got it. Moment of truth though — could the AI read the cats’ faces?
Bushwick: It did pretty well!
Bose: Huh!
Bushwick: The landmark-based model was 77 percent accurate —
Bose: Interesting —
Bushwick: — and the deep learning one was a little less good. That was 65 percent accurate. But they think the deep learning one could improve if it has more photos to train on—this particular kind of model is really data hungry.
Bose: It needs more pictures of cats.
Bushwick: Exactly. Everyone needs more pictures of cats.
Bose: We all do.
Bushwick: Including AI.
Bose: Right! So can we learn anything from the AI about reading our cats’ faces?
Bushwick: Yeah, that’s one of the cool things about this study! So it turns out that the eyes are not the windows to your cat’s soul. When it comes to accurate pain recognition, you need to look at your cat’s mouth.
Bose: It’s meowth.
Bushwick: Aaaaah! You did it!
Bose: I did it. Can we go beyond pain here? Like, is there an AI that can tell me if a cat is happy, or sad, or about to knock a glass of water on my laptop?
Bushwick: That’s the eventual goal! A researcher who’s not involved in this AI study recently published a paper showing that cats can produce almost three hundred facial expressions.
Bose: Yeah like I knew this cat that had this expression when it was going to take a bite of MY sandwich—
Bushwick: [laughs] That’s very specific.
Bose: Yeah. But I feel like that was its sandwich-eating, sandwich-stealing —
Bushwick: Sandwich-eating sandwich steal-ing face. The classic expression.
Bose: Yeah! It’s like I’m going to swipe your food, stupid human.
[...]