Happy 2025 Friends! And welcome back. We’re very glad to see you.
Heard of Earth Species Project? A group of geeks is trying correct for the fact that although 8 million species share this planet, we humans can only reliably talk to ourselves. ESP uses “AI technology,” a usually douchey compound noun that, in this case, is wielded by decent folks. Their Co-founder and President Aza Raskin, for example, co-hosts the essential, very humanist podcast Your Undivided Attention.
Okay, so: ESP is collecting a bunch of animal sounds, then letting machine learning achieve speaking fluency in various species’ languages. One day, on a boat in Alaska, the researchers communicated to humpback whales. The content was believed to be one whale’s name, plus hello. (The researchers couldn’t be sure: they don’t yet know exactly what their AI says.)
The whales started acting strangely, bouncing frantically around the boat, etcetera. ESP immediately stopped the playback. They did so because they’re ethical. If they weren’t, they could have experimented with different sounds until the whales went crazy, or brought fish to the boat, or did, like, a photogenic breach. Thankfully, the researchers agreed that going out and playing humpback whale-song willy-nilly might mess up humpback culture. (A culture which happens to go back 34 million years 😭.)
We can all agree that willy-nilly playback would have been fucked up. And yet! This scenario is perfectly analogous to humanity and social media. When YouTube and Instagram and TikTok serve up a next piece of content, that’s an AI pointed at your brain, communicating to you in machine learned human “sounds.” The AI doesn’t know what the content says. Only that when you listen, you keep listening (scrolling). Tech companies of course understand this. But why should they stop the playback? Scrolling is their very profitable business.
Can you imagine if the AI also happened to unwittingly privilege outrage, fear-mongering, narcissism and greed? (Uh oh 😅.) Cue Aza Raskin: “It’s sort of obvious that if you take an AI and have it communicate with animals it might mess things up, and somehow this is not obvious when we do it with humans.”
MICRO-SEASON: DEC 30 - JAN 12
Unlike the arbitrary quarters of labor time made up by corporate humanoids, micro-seasons are straight from source, the great unity, the god-babe herself: Mama Natura.
This micro-season, in McGolrick Park, our proxy for NYC and perhaps even larger swathes of the eastern US, one noticed:
Falcon courtship · Freezing southeasterly winds · Late flowers enter vegetative state
As for McGolrick birds, we noticed the following species:
Peregrine Falcon · American Kestrel · Dark-eyed Junco · White-throated Sparrow · Tufted Titmouse · White-breasted Nuthatch · Red-tailed Hawk · Cooper’s Hawk · Downy Woodpecker · Red-bellied Woodpecker · Northern Flicker · Yellow-bellied Sapsucker · Northern Cardinal · Blue Jay · Fish Crow · American Crow · Rock Pigeon · European Starling · American Robin · House Sparrow · Mourning Dove
Falcon territorial defense and courtship displays begin in January, a few months before spring/summer breeding season. Look out for pairs of birds of prey flying together and circling
Want to know the most common US falcons? Keep reading!
Current Japanese micro-season: Parsley flourishes and Springs thaw
MICRO-LESSON: FALCONS
FALCONS OF NYC: It’s surprisingly easy to notice a falcon in New York City. That’s because falcos’ regularly use homo skyscraperius’ beloved artificial cliffs, our buildings and bridges, as perches to dive off and sometimes nest on. The species to know? American Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon and Merlin.
HOW TO NOTICE KESTRELS I: Kestrels are probably the most common falcon in NYC. How’ve you missed ‘em? One explanation is they’re easily confused with Mourning Doves, the super common poofs whose bittersweet tune is most Americans’ first experience of birdsong.
HOW TO NOTICE KESTRELS II: Listen out for a distinctive, almost parrot-like klee-klee-klee. That call may alert you to territorial defense moves, where tiny Kestrels swoop back and forth, nearly hitting much larger birds, such as Red-tailed Hawks.