In the future, it may be possible to talk with dogs, decipher whale sounds, and interpret bird calls using artificial intelligence (AI) applications, according to animal researchers.
Scientists are currently using AI tools to analyze extensive amounts of data on various animal species’ communications, such as sounds, postures, and expressions. The goal is to determine if humans can understand and communicate with animals in a way that is similar to human-to-human communication.
“Machine learning has opened the door to decoding languages that were previously incomprehensible,” said Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Earth Species Project, a non-profit organization focused on developing AI models for human-animal “conversations.” Raskin predicts that this will become a reality within the next two years.
“The interesting part is that we may be able to communicate with animals before fully understanding them,” said Raskin to Scientific American. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we discover shared expressions for emotions like ‘grief,’ ‘mother,’ or ‘hungry’ across different species.”
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Christian Rutz, a behavioral ecologist at the University of St Andrews, shares the same viewpoint.
“With the advancements in AI, people are beginning to realize that we are on the verge of significant breakthroughs in understanding animals’ communication,” he said.
The scope of research and possible advancements goes beyond translating animal sounds. Con Slobodchikoff, an animal language researcher, aims to develop an AI model that can interpret dogs’ barks and facial expressions for their owners.
“We tend to focus solely on sound as the only form of communication, ignoring many other cues,” he explained. Despite the added complexity, Slobodchikoff is confident that machine learning will provide insights into pets’ communication.
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Dogs communicate beyond just barking, according to Slobodchikoff. (iStock)
AI advancements are not limited to traditional pets. Shane Gero, the lead biologist for Project CETI, is using AI to decode sperm whale sounds. Gero’s team is using underwater microphones to track specific patterns of whale sounds, known as codas, and plans to translate them using AI.
Gero initially fed manually decoded codas to an algorithm, which successfully identified a subset of whales with a 99% accuracy rate. CETI aims to develop a “whale chatbot” in the future.
Project CETI aims to translate sperm whales’ clicks into a language humans can understand. (Photo by Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
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