How Technology Is Helping Decode Animal Language

In 2017, a group of scientists were struck by a startling realization – sperm whale vocalizations, that sound like clicks, resemble Morse Code to a great extent. It sowed the seeds for an ambitious project -- the Cetacean Translation Initiative, or Project CETI -- that would use artificial intelligence to translate these whale sounds such that humans would be able to understand them. The introduction of tech into studying animal behavior not only helps us understand them better -- but also, paradoxically, helps reveal our own limits as a species. This could go one of two ways: enable greater conservation efforts, or instil a hubris that could use the newfound knowledge of animal communication against them. It is not just whale communication that has been the subject of translation initiatives.