Program

Find information about the structure of your course below.

AI×Animals Fall 2026

The AI×Animals Course is 8 weeks in total, tentatively running from late October until the middle of December:

Planned sessions:

Week 1. Welcome and Course Intro Week 2. AI×Animals: The Present and Near Future Week 3. Precision Livestock Farming Week 4. Interspecies Communication Week 5a. Genetic Welfare Week 5b. AI×Alt Proteins Week 6. AI×Animals: The Long-Term Future Week 7. Animal Advocacy in the Age of Transformative AI Week 8. Taking Action: Projects and Career Planning

We are planning a few optional elective sessions that cover related topics, featuring leading researchers and practitioners. We’ll announce these soon!

Onboarding steps

Format: what to expect

How do the live sessions work?

You will meet with your group once a week for 1h45m with a 5m break in the middle.

• Meetings will be held on Google Meets.
• Please turn on your webcam – this creates a more lively and engaging experience for everybody.

📜 Handouts

All sessions will be structured around handouts in Google Docs which include prompts for discussions & activities (with timers to make sure we stay on track and cover everything).

Think of your group’s handout as a living document to assist your AI×Animals journey – the more resources & insights you share in it, the better!

Make sure you bookmark your group’s session doc & have it open at the start of every session. Every week, new content will be added as tabs on the left side of the doc. The session doc will also be available in the “Important Links” section of you group’s Slack channel.

✋ Participation etiquette

• Raising hands by default – but your group can agree on different norms as you get to know each other better.
• Be mindful of your mic and background noise. Mute when you are not speaking.
• Don’t be afraid to ask clarification questions – especially for basic concepts. This helps make sure everybody is on the same page, and it’s to good to practice explaining things to others.
• Have a low bar for asking others to repeat themselves – if you did not understand their point, it’s possible others didn’t as well.
• We encourage active participation – but also be aware of your speaking time.
• We want to create an inclusive learning environment where everyone feels comfortable participating.
• Please review our culture doc for further details.

🔴 Recording and AI notetakers

• To ensure that everybody feels comfortable participating in discussion, recording sessions is prohibited.
• If you would like to use an AI notetaker, you must obtain consent from everybody in attendance at the start of every meeting. Just a quick: “I’d like to use an AI notetaker today, is anyone not okay with that?”, should suffice!

A “standing” consent is not valid because fellows may switch groups during the course.

• Please reach out to your facilitator if you have any concerns.

How to get the most out of the course?

⏰ Please be punctual.

In order to ensure the best learning experience for everybody, please arrive on time.

1. Subscribe to the calendar invites to receive reminders when your session is coming up.
2. Bookmark your Google Meet link – it will be the same every week.
3. Bookmark your group’s session handout (Note that links to the Google Meet and session doc are also pinned in your group’s private Slack channel).
4. Open the Google Meet page and the session doc 10-15 minutes early so you’re not looking for the link when it’s time for your session to start.

✅ Attendance is key!

In order to receive a certificate at the end of the course, you must attend at least 7 out of 8 sessions and complete the exit survey.

🔄 If needed, you can change groups.

If necessary, you may switch cohorts during the middle of the course. A schedule of meeting timeslots can be found in the ‘General Info’ canvas pinned at the top of #f-aia26s-general in slack.

How do I switch? Switching is as easy as 1-2-3!

1. On Slack, notify your main facilitator that you will be switching groups for the week
2. Notify the facilitator of the group you would like to switch to, requesting (i) an invite to the calendar event, (ii) edit permissions for the session doc, and (iii) to be added to the new group's private channel. Links to the session docs and private channels can be found in the table below.
3. After joining the new group’s private channel, introduce yourself.

Otherwise, please stay in your assigned group. We have carefully balanced the groups to optimise discussions. Unbalanced groups (e.g. too small, large, uniformity of perspectives) may undermine discussion quality.

📚 Do the readings and pre-session exercises

Every week, there are readings related to the session topic. You must complete the required readings. If you are particularly interested in a topic, we welcome you to browse the further readings.

• To keep things dynamic, readings are usually a mix of text & videos. Many articles have audio options!
• To save time, you can play back audio resources at higher speeds. Sometimes, it can be helpful to listen to an article several times.
• Develop your own reading strategy based on your own goals for the course. This might mean focusing on some readings more than others – or delving into the further readings for certain weeks.
• The pre-session exercises tie directly into in-session activities. Not completing the exercises may make it hard for you to join the in-session activities.

Share your thoughts!

Your facilitator and group members are there to discuss questions, ideas, and other reactions to the readings. We strongly encourage you to post your reflections in your private channel or in the general course channel, and to engage with others.

💼 Build career capital

We would love if you added your course to your Linkedin profile. You can select Sentient Futures as the organisation. We recommend the following titles:

• “AI×Animals Fellow” or just “AI×Animals Course”
• “Animal Prioritization Fellow” or just “Prioritizing Neglected Animals Course”
• “Sentient Futures Fellow”