I’ve seen the new AI collar that lets your dog talk, and it’s just as wild as it sounds
The Shazam Band is a new AI-powered collar with speakers and sensors that allows your pet to talk to you, just like the dogs in the Pixar movie UP can. Once your pet wears the band, you can have a conversation with it and the band will provide a human voice in response to your questions.
You can also use the Shazam Band to track your pet if he wanders off, and you will be alerted via text message if he is in danger, such as from other animals or traffic, or if he is left behind somewhere. You can find them using the Shazam app and the GPS in the band.
A real life UP
Since the Pixar film UP back in 2009, people tried to make a real version of a collar that would allow your pet to talk to you. In 2021 even Ny Breaking interviewed the makers of Petpuls, one of the first AI-powered dog collars aimed at giving your pet a voice.
So far, no one has really managed to crack a talking collar for pets, but Shazam wants to get people and animals talking once and for all. To find out more, we met John McHale, CEO of Personifi AI, the company behind Shazam. John explained that he came up with the idea of using AI to help pets communicate after his dog, Roscoe, was bitten by a rattlesnake and almost died because he didn’t know what had happened. “It got me thinking about AI and how the tragedy could have been averted and it became clear that we could apply AI in such a way that if Roscoe was bitten by a rattlesnake, he could have texted me even if I wasn’t there was. and immediately told me he had had a rattlesnake encounter. That was the genesis of Shazam.”
Sensation enhancement
Shazam works for any type of pet that fits the collar, so think of a dog, cat, goat or whatever four-legged friend runs around your house. It works using AI, trained on large data sets in a similar way to how ChatGPT is trained.
The band contains a number of sensors, in particular it seems to listen to and respond to the words you say to your pet, but also interprets your pet’s kinematic behavior. The result is that the Shazam Band provides what McHale calls “sentience augmentation.” What that means is that it verbalizes your pet’s mood, experiences, and reactions to you – as they happen – with little sound clips like “I’m feeling sad right now” and “You know I feel like cuddling.” The idea is that you start having a conversation with your pet and over time it learns and becomes more natural.
But does it work?
Of course, the million dollar question is: does it really work? I had a live demo of Shazam by the Personifi AI team in Texas, and I’m still not quite sure what to think. John McHale demonstrated with his own dog, Roscoe, wearing the Shazam Band and I got to hear the dog ‘speak’.
Without testing the device on my own pet, it’s very difficult to say how well it works, but in the demo we saw how Roscoe’s Shazam collar successfully interpreted when its owner was happy or sad, and produced the appropriate responses. Also, when McHale wrestled a dog toy into Roscoe’s mouth, much to his delight, his collar emerged with Captain America’s famous catchphrase: “I could do this all day!”.
They say you should never work with children or animals, and during the live demo Roscoe was clearly not in the mood for fun. He preferred to lie on the couch, but it’s impossible not to smile when you hear a dog ‘talk’ for the first time, especially since the voices are all done by comic actors. Many are voiced by Bobby Johnson, AKA RxCKStxRa social media celebrity known for giving voice to pets online.
Choose a personality
There are 25 different personas to choose from for your pet, and each is essentially a different voice. During the first 30 days of owning the Shazam Band, you can try them all out before you have to choose the personality that best suits your pet. We heard a lovable madman, a witty southern belle and a fast-talking mob boss. Do any of these sound like your pet?
There were also a number of options for the international market: there was one British voice (masculine and posh, think Hugh Grant) and a Spanish female voice. Most striking was the Jamaican voice, which used a Patois.
Considering how crazy people are about their pets, the potential for Shazam is clearly huge, and as soon as we get our hands on one in November we’ll bring you a full review. The ethical considerations of anthropomorphizing your pet still need to be considered, but as a cat owner, I would like to know what my cat actually wants when he looks at me, purrs and meows. Is it attention? Is it food? Is it play time? It would be very useful to know.
Ultimately, the whole talking pet situation leaves me feeling somewhat indecisive. It was certainly fun for the owner, but I wonder what Roscoe thought of it all. He seemed pretty happy with the voices coming from his collar, but it’s not like he had a choice in the matter. What if he’s a dog that doesn’t want to be anthropomorphized? I think despite the progress Shazam makes in human-animal interaction, we’ll never really be able to ask him.
The Shazam Band is available for pre-order in two different versions. The full GPS-enabled band costs $595 and a less fully featured version priced at $495 is available from shazampet.com.