This App Tells If Your Cat Is Happy

In case you're wondering how your cat is feeling today, sylvester.ai developed an app that can read your feline's emotions. 

The app was previously called Happy or Not, and is renamed Talby, which is developed by a joint venture between Alta ML and The Bar G - both Canadian companies involved in artificial intelligence and gadget development. 

Based on peer-reviewed papers, Alta ML was able to develop the Feline Grimace Scale (FGS), which is a valid tool for measuring and computing acute pain in different species, including cats. Talby functions on an algorithm that can tell cats' 'happiness' through their facial features. 

The leading author of the publication on FGS and associate professor of veterinary anesthesia and pain management at the University of Montreal, Paulo Steagall, said, “Depending on the cats’ muzzle, eyes, ears, whiskers, or head position, you can determine whether or not a cat is in pain.” 

On the validity of the tool, Steagall commented: "[The cat] hears some background noises and she has her eyes partially closed and her ears backwards." He continued, “So she would get a high score on the grimace scale, saying that you should probably give what we call rescue analgesia, but she was not in pain at all. She was just sleeping and paid attention to the background noise.”

As the app reads the cat's facial features, it provides a percentage - however, the percentage is not correlated with the level of happiness, but rather the extent of confidence it has in its results. The app's senior product manager, Miche Priest, contends that the app enjoys a 97% accuracy rate.