Artificial Intelligence ‘could give humans the ability to talk to animals’…
So much effort has gone into teaching systems such as Siri and Alexa to understand that using AI to decode animal communication could be a logical next step.
Talking to animals, in the way Dr. Dolittle did, might seem more like an appropriate subject matter for a family film than serious scientific research. But Professor Michael Bronstein at Imperial College London says that Artificial Intelligence could provide the key to unlocking completely alien languages – such as the complex songs of whales. Bronstein is already working on an AI chatbot that could decipher sperm whales’ unique language even though it has no points of reference with any human communication. He does concede, though, that the first conversations between humans and whales may be “only be a rough approximation of the true depth and meaning of what they’re saying” because our lives and reference points are so completely different.
Nevertheless, Professor Bronstein heads a team at the Cetacean Translation Initiative – or CETI – which has been set up in the hope of one day decoding the secret language of sperm whale communication.
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