Complaint
The programme included a report on research being conducted by Scotland’s Rural College using AI to try to interpret the behaviour, feelings and emotions of pigs. Scientist Emma Baxter explained how AI has been adapted to examine a pig’s facial features and associate particular expressions with experiences such as pain, with a view to developing what she described as “a truly animal-centric welfare assessment tool that allows…us to ask, and them to tell us, their individual experience of their environment”. Two viewers complained that Professor Fry followed this report with comments which were inappropriately dismissive of this scientifically-based approach and misleading as to animal sentience. The ECU considered the complaints in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
At the end of the report Professor Fry said “I am a little bit more sceptical. I’m not sure if pigs are even capable of human-like emotions, like being happy or sad. This doesn’t have like an, an absolute truth to it, you know. Maybe that’s a question for the future”. The ECU considered that, in the context of the programme, listeners in general would have understood this as a personal reflection on a topic where many questions remained to be resolved, rather than an attempt to invalidate the preceding contribution. The comments did not imply that animals do not experience pain, distress or other states which had been discussed in the report, but questioned only whether it was appropriate to regard these as corresponding to human emotions.
Not Upheld