Google created a new AI model for talking to dolphins | Hacker News Reader

Google created a new AI model for talking to dolphins

arstechnica.com

5 pointspmags6 comments

Every time I see news about AI taking to animals, I want to ask: why do they assume animals have universal languages across an entire population?

For human, language is a cultural thing. We have so many variations. I often see AI that talks to pets. But usually a pet grows up in isolation to other peers, can it learn their language at all, or they just develop some local dialect that is only used within the household?

The Arstechnica article touches on this briefly:

While DolphinGemma has been trained on Atlantic spotted dolphin sounds, Google suggests it should be feasible to fine-tune it for other cetacean species.

I haven't read the paper below, but here's a reference that seems relevant to your question:

Luís, A.R., May-Collado, L.J., Rako-Gospić, N. et al. Vocal universals and geographic variations in the acoustic repertoire of the common bottlenose dolphin. Sci Rep 11, 11847 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-90710-9

I thought that April's Fools Day was the 1st. Or at least, it looks a lot like the typical announces of that day (i.e. the one by ElevenLabs of this very year).

I don't know what to expect from that. I'm not sure if even a conversation, as we understand it, would make sense with them.

That was my first reaction as well, and actually double checked the posting date. But apparently it's a real thing:

https://blog.google/technology/ai/dolphingemma/

As to conversations and whether cetacean communication has a syntax, I think that's a super interesting question. I know next to nothing about cetacean communication but a quick PubMed search turned up this reference which looks like it might be a useful jumping off point for the literature in this area:

King SL, Guarino E, Donegan K, McMullen C, Jaakkola K. Evidence that bottlenose dolphins can communicate with vocal signals to solve a cooperative task. R Soc Open Sci. 2021 Mar 17;8(3):202073. doi: 10.1098/rsos.202073. PMID: 33959360; PMCID: PMC8074934.

Interesting days ahead at the local aquarium? ;-)

Step right up kids! talk to a dolphin for 50 cents!!!

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