Scientists decoding whale clicks found patterns that echo the building blocks of human speech. The marine mammals have a complex communication system that scientists are working to decode. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A new study discovered a fresh component of their various vocalizations and could hint at potential language structures. Sperm whales exhibit patterns similar to human vowels and diphthongs-a connected pair of vowels in a word, such as the "oi" in .

In 2025 we will see AI and machine learning leveraged to make real progress in understanding animal communication, answering a question that has puzzled humans as long as we have existed: "What are animals saying to each other?" The recent Coller-Dolittle Prize, offering cash prizes up to half-a-million dollars for scientists who "crack the code" is an indication of a bullish confidence that recent technological developments in machine learning and large language models (LLMs) are placing this goal within our grasp. Many research groups have been working for years on algorithms to make sense of animal sounds. Project Ceti, for example, has been decoding the click trains of sperm whales and the songs of humpbacks. These modern machine learning tools require extremely large amounts of data, and up until now, such quantities of high-quality and well-annotated data have been lacking. Consider LLMs such as ChatGPT that have training data available to them that includes the entirety of text available on the internet.

Marine biologists are inching closer to understanding the ins and outs of sperm whale communication. But in order to decode what the cetaceans are saying, they must first need to find them and know where they will surface. This is no easy feat, since sperm whales can dive over 10,000 feet andstay way below the surface for up to 60 minutes. Their habitats themselves stretch for thousands of miles. Now, scientists from Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) and Harvard University are proposing a new method for finding sperm whales and predicting where they will surface using autonomous robots and a rich combination of sensor data.

David Gruber began his almost impossibly varied career studying bluestriped grunt fish off the coast of Belize. He was an undergraduate, and his job was to track the fish at night. He navigated by the stars and slept in a tent on the beach. "It was a dream," he recalled recently. "I didn't know what I was doing, but I was performing what I thought a marine biologist would do."

Humans could soon communicate with animals, as scientists worldwide are using artificial intelligence to speak to bees, elephants and whales, but one expert fears the power could be used to manipulate the wild species. Speaking in an interview with Vox, Karen Bakker from the University of British Columbia said a researcher team in Germany is using AI to decode patterns in nonhuman sound, such as the waggle dance of honeybees and the low-frequency noises of elephants, which enables the technology to not just communicate, but also control the wild animals. Bakker explained that the animal speaking AI can be added to robots that can'essentially breach the barrier of interspecies communication,' but she also notes the breakthrough raises ethical questions. Enabling humans to speak with different species could create a'deeper sense of kinship, or a sense of dominion and manipulative ability to domesticate wild species that we've never as humans been able to previously control.' A team of German researches trained AI to mimic the waggle dance of honeybees.

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.

Any child who read a Doctor Dolittle book has likely dreamed of being able to communicate with animals in the same way the title character can. In the century-plus since those books came out, it doesn't seem that anyone has developed that ability innately. However, researchers think they can take steps in that direction thanks to machine learning. There are many elements of animal communication that perfectly lend themselves to the work that can be done by machine learning, or artificial intelligence (AI). And that work, in turn, illustrates how machine learning can be used to crack other seemingly impossible codes. Here are three takeaways from the work being done that can be universally applied.

With the goal of'talking' to the majestic marine animals, a project to listen to, contextualise and translate the communication of Sperm whales was recently launched by a team of international scientists. Called Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), the initiative looks to harness the power of artificial intelligence to interpret clicking sounds, or'codas,' which these whales make to communicate with one another. Also Read: Why is mysterious dark energy leading to expansion of the universe? The researchers have been using natural language processing or NLP, a subfield of artificial intelligence focused on processing written and spoken human language. It will be trained in four billion Sperm whale codas.

A team of international scientists recently launched an ambitious project to listen to, contextualize and translate the communication of Sperm whales, with a goal of'talking' to the majestic marine animals. The initiative, called Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to interpret clicking sounds, or'codas,' Sperm whales make to communicate with one another. Researchers are using natural language processing or NLP – a subfield of artificial intelligence focused on processing written and spoken human language - which will be trained four billion Sperm whale codas. The plan is to have the AI correlate each sound with a specific context - a feat that will take at least five years, according to the researchers. If the team achieves these goals, the next step would be to develop and deploy an interactive chatbot that engages in dialogue with Sperm whales living in the wild.

I don't know much about whales. I have never seen a whale in my life,