People at the Trinity College Dublin are allegedly getting to talk to a 200-Year-Old London Plane tree- after a technology project involving environmental sensors and AI gave the tree a ‘voice’!
People who had a childhood habit of befriending trees in their backyards or their schools- just so that they could have a ‘TALK’ with nature- well, they might actually get a response now! The only catch is, they will have to book a ticket for Dublin and will have to pay a visit to Trinity College Dublin. Sounds crazy? Well, believe it or not but students at the Trinity College Dublin are getting to ‘talk’ to a 200-year-old London Plane tree! A technology project, ‘Talking Tree’- was reportedly introduced at the college quite recently- which allegedly gave a ‘voice’ to the said tree. ‘How’, you ask? Well, the project is reportedly using environmental sensors and AI to give the tree a ‘voice’- talk about a ‘talking tree’ being a real thing! As per the RTÉ News, the project aims to learn the feelings of the tree. “We can learn the tree’s feelings – for lack of a better word – over time,” Evan Greally, Dublin agency Droga5’s Head of Tech & Innovation, was quoted as saying to RTÉ News.
Reportedly, the project involves sensors that are connected to the tree. The sensors measure the tree’s ‘bioelectrical signals, soil moisture, soil pH, air temperature and humidity, sunlight, air quality’- along with the time of day- and then feed the same to an ‘AI large language model’. The model then, in-return, converts the data into ‘understandable human language’, as per RTÉ News.
Further explaining the project’s aim, Greally stated that the team eventually wants to use the project for something which can benefit nature. “Where do we want to go with the project is, can we use this in conservation? Can we detect wildfires before they go out of hand by talking to nature and connecting ourselves in this way?” Greally was further quoted as saying to RTÉ News.
Apart from the project being a major step towards the greater good of nature and the environment itself, it is also seemingly ‘sustainable’, as it is not using a ‘cloud’. “We’re not using any cloud resources to run this or any geo-intense stuff or sources. Everything is hosted locally on the device. The large language model, the text to speech, the speech to text, it all happens locally,” Greally continued. “It’s an AI brain that’s not connected to the internet in any way, that allows the tree to speak,” he added. The project is reportedly a collaboration between Droga5 and the UK-based Agency for Nature.