Talking to Animals Becomes Reality

Experts predict that artificial intelligence will enable people to communicate with household pets and even wild animals in the future. Researchers and experts worldwide typically use what is known as "digital bioacoustics" (small, portable digital recorders) to capture sounds, movements, and behaviors of animals that are too quiet or subtle for humans to detect. This data will be used to train AI to decipher this communication language and translate it into human-understandable terms. Experts expect that projects like the "Earth Species Project" will make significant progress in the next 12 to 36 months. Current experiments in the "Earth Species Project" include attempts to map the vocal inventory of crows, as well as another experiment aimed at generating new sounds that birds can understand. Researchers at the University of Lincoln are also using AI to classify and understand feline expressions. Additionally, a new AI model aims to translate facial expressions and dog barks. Experts also discussed bats, which have a very complex language, particularly as they argue about food and use a "baby talk" language when communicating with their young. They explained that "deep learning" is capable of decoding bat language, which relies heavily on ultrasound. Microphones on buoys and robotic fish attempt to capture the "sounds" of sperm whales, the largest predators in the world, which locate their food using clicks but also employ a shorter series of clicks called "codas" to communicate with one another. Experts aim to implant microphones on the bodies of whales to collect vast amounts of data, intending to use machine learning to reveal what these enormous animals are saying.