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Can we one day talk to a virtual grouper, pen shell, or dolphin as a way of learning about the sea?
It may sound like science fiction, but researchers are already developing educational platforms where students can talk to virtual marine organisms using artificial intelligence.
In the recently published study “OceanChat”, participants interacted with virtual marine organisms such as a beluga whale, jellyfish, and seahorse. The goal was to share information, but also to encourage empathy, connection with the sea, and reflection on personal choices and behaviour.
The results showed that interactive conversations can increase interest in marine conservation topics and encourage more sustainable choices more effectively than traditional static educational content. This tells us something very important: today’s students do not learn only by reading and listening. They learn through interaction, experience, emotions, and a sense of connection.Of course, artificial intelligence cannot replace teachers, fieldwork, or real contact with nature. However, it can become an interesting tool that helps bring the sea closer to students in a way they understand and enjoy. Perhaps one day in the classroom we will talk with a virtual pen shell about marine pollution, with a dolphin about underwater noise, or with Posidonia seagrass about blue carbon and climate change.
That is why it is important to follow new technologies and use them thoughtfully, critically, and responsibly — as support for quality marine education.
Source:
Pataranutaporn, P., Doudkin, A. & Maes, P. (2025). OceanChat: The Effect of Virtual Conversational AI Agents on Sustainable Attitude and Behavior Change. MIT Media Lab / arXiv preprint.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02863OceanChat: The Effect of Virtual Conversational AI Agents on Sustainable Attitude and Behavior ChangeOceanChat: The Effect of Virtual Conversational AI Agents on Sustainable Attitude and Behavior Changehttps://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02863![]()
OceanChat: The Effect of Virtual Conversational AI Agents on Sustainable Attitude and Behavior ChangeMarine ecosystems face unprecedented threats from climate change and plastic pollution, yet traditional environmental education often struggles to translate awareness into sustained behavioral change. This paper presents OceanChat, an interactive system leveraging large language models to create conversational AI agents represented as animated marine creatures -- specifically a beluga whale, a jellyfish, and a seahorse -- designed to promote environmental behavior (PEB) and foster awareness through personalized dialogue. Through a between-subjects experiment (N=900), we compared three conditions: (1) Static Scientific Information, providing conventional environmental education through text and images; (2) Static Character Narrative, featuring first-person storytelling from 3D-rendered marine creatures; and (3) Conversational Character Narrative, enabling real-time dialogue with AI-powered marine characters. Our analysis revealed that the Conversational Character Narrative condition significantly increased behavioral intentions and sustainable choice preferences compared to static approaches. The beluga whale character demonstrated consistently stronger emotional engagement across multiple measures, including perceived anthropomorphism and empathy. However, impacts on deeper measures like climate policy support and psychological distance were limited, highlighting the complexity of shifting entrenched beliefs. Our work extends research on sustainability interfaces facilitating PEB and offers design principles for creating emotionally resonant, context-aware AI characters. By balancing anthropomorphism with species authenticity, OceanChat demonstrates how interactive narratives can bridge the gap between environmental knowledge and real-world behavior change.arxiv.org
