Mayumi Kitakata is concerned about the general health and well-being of Chi, her tenacious roommate, who enjoys sweets and sometimes overindulges in catnip. Chi is regarded as an older cat, having reached about 14 years of age.
Kitakata, who is 57 years old, has had the pleasure of owning several pet cats throughout the years. To make sure Chi gets as many seasons as possible to enjoy, Kitakata has resorted to using artificial intelligence.
In March, Kitakata welcomed the early release of CatsMe!, an AI-powered smartphone software that purports to be able to identify pain indicators in cats. This takes away a lot of the guesswork in figuring out when to make the dreaded trip to the vet.
"Chi is getting older, and there is a greater chance that she will get sick," said Kitakata, a single mother of a grown son. "Therefore, being able to seek veterinary advice while minimizing hospital visits is crucial for both Chi's well-being and mine."
Pets are important to families everywhere, but in Japan, where the birth rate is dropping and the population is aging, the relevance of pets is especially great. The Japan Pet Food Association reports that the number of pet dogs and cats in the nation exceeded the number of children under the age of 15 by about 16 million last year.
CatsMe! was developed by Carelogy, a software firm, in collaboration with Nihon University researchers. The software was created by training it on a collection of six thousand images of cats. With the introduction of CatsMe! last year, the website has amassed over 230,000 customers. The app's creators assert that its accuracy is more than 95% and predict that it will become even better as the AI learns to recognize more and more cat faces.
Professor Kazuya Edamura of Nihon University claims that vets such as himself can infer an animal's level of suffering. For pet owners, it is more difficult, though. According to Edamura's data, more than 70% of senior cats experience pain or arthritis, but only 2% of them go to hospitals. They use the app as a tool to tell owners whether the condition is within normal boundaries or needs attention, rather than offering a final diagnosis.
Chi lives in an apartment in central Tokyo with Kitakata. One of their favorite spots in the house is where cats love to nap: next to a balcony window that looks down five stories to cherry trees.Kitakata uses the app frequently to examine Chi's everyday facial expressions and keep a careful eye on her potty habits.
When Kitakata was in her mid-20s, she began to raise cats as pets. One of them was Soran, a male brown-striped cat who tragically died of cancer at the young age of eight, about six years ago. With tears welling up in her eyes, Kitakata reflected on the loss and said she wished she had seen the warning signals sooner so they could have pursued cancer therapy sooner and possibly improved Soran's prognosis. She thinks there was a chance to save him.