你能从一只猫的眼神中看出它在想什么吗？猫在进化过程中成为了跟踪猎物的孤独猎手，而不是像我们人类这样的社会性动物。在追踪猎物时，猫猫的扑克脸可能会很有优势，但如果人类想知道宠物是否正在忍受疼痛，那就很麻烦了。研究人员正试图借助人工智能更深入地了解猫科动物的感受。
如果你想知道一只猫是否疼痛，你必须做一个名为“格拉斯哥猫科动物综合疼痛量表”（Glasgow Feline Composite Measure Pain Scale，简称“格拉斯哥量表”）的测试。首先你要选出与猫猫最匹配的图片，然后回答有关它行为的问题，每个问题都会有一个相关的小数字，数字的高低取决于它的痛苦程度，最后加起来就是你家猫猫的疼痛指数了。
但是，对于不是兽医的普通人来说，这项测试并不简单，例如，你能分辨出猫猫紧张和蹲下的样子吗？能区分僵硬或驼背的猫吗？
自由科普作家利拉·冈畑（Leila Okahata）写过一篇关于人工智能疼痛检测的文章。研究人员从德国一家动物医院收治的84只猫咪照片入手，对它们进行了疼痛检测，然后根据格拉斯哥量表给这些猫猫进行疼痛评分，并给照片打上疼痛评分的标注。
他们用到了两种机器学习算法：第一种对每张照片都进行了细致的分析，研究了猫猫脸上40多个特定部位；第二种是一个深度学习模型，它会把每张照片作为一个整体来看。第一种模型准确率高达……[查看全文]
AI Can Now Read Your Cat's Pain
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.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.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.Bushwick: It’s also just called Glasgow scale.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!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.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 —Bushwick: How it responds to being pet —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 —Bushwick: And one that is rigid / hunched?Bose: No that would be like the same thing to me!Bushwick: It sounds exactly the same.Bushwick: So it’s pretty subjective, you have to make some judgment calls…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?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 —Bushwick: — and then they gave these cats a pain score based on the Glasgow scale that we talked about —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.Bushwick: You mean “meow-ch”?Bose: Uh, no, no I don’t.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.]Bushwick: I’m just littering the script with them! [Continues laughing.]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.Bushwick: One broke down each photo in great detail, by examining four dozen specific sites on the cats’ faces. These are called landmarks.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!
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