If you want to speak a language you don’t know, you probably turn to Google Translate.
That tends to be for human languages like French or Arabic – but now Google even wants to help us speak to dolphins and achieve ‘interspecies communication’.
They have created a large language model trained on the sounds the marine mammals make, like clicks and whistles.
The idea is that it will learn to recognise patterns in their vocalisations, and work out what is likely to come next.
It’s the same way that LLMs like ChatGPT are able to respond in a human-like manner.
DolphinGemma, announced today, aims to find out what the slippery ocean mammals are saying, and potentially even how we can speak back to them as well.
We already know that dolphins are very smart, and communciate with each other using clicks, whistles, and pulse calls.
Dolphin sounds and what they mean
Some of the known examples of dolphin communication are:
- Signature whistles (unique names) that can be used by mothers and calves to reunite
- Burst-pulse ‘squawks’ often seen during fights
- Click ‘buzzes’ often used during courtship or chasing sharks
They are considered some of the most intelligent creatures in the world, and can recognise themselves in a mirror and teach each other skills.
Researchers even believe they have ‘names’ for individuals, to allow them to call out to one particular dolphin in a group.
Scientists have been trying to decode exactly what they’re saying to each other for decades, but now AI could supercharge the efforts.
Google DeepMind is working together with the Wild Dolphin Project, which has gathered underwater video and audio of the animals for years in a bid to understand them.
The Dr Dolittle-style AI will be trained on this dataset, matching up sounds with behaviours to work out what they mean.
Researchers will use the dolphin chatbot in the field, using Pixel phones.
It’s not just about understanding their language, but speaking to them too.
Researchers are trying to create their own sounds, such as whistles, and encourage dolphins to associate them with things of interest to them, such as types of seaweed they like.
If the analysis takes off and we really work out how to speak to dolphins, though, we might not like what they have to say.
While they’re known for playfully leaping out of the water alongside boats, just like humans, they can have a dark side.
A man who was attacked by a ‘sexually frustrated’ dolphin said he was ‘lucky to be alive’ last year, while another dolphin almost bit a British tourist’s foot off during a wild swim.
Even if the dolphins like us, though, they might just tell us to give up polluting the oceans and switch off the noisy boat engines.
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