I wonder what’s stopping us on training a neural network on whale noises and trying to translate it using another neural network…
I’m making it sound easy and I’m sure it’s not, but I just wonder how far away from such endeavour we are?
You are exactly right, and this is exactly what the field Digital Bioacoustics is all about, using AI to decode the languages of animals. Here is a simple brief overview of it. This post is a much more in depth article on whale communication and AI. There is a fantastic book that recently came out by Tom Mustill called How To Speak Whale that goes really in depth on the current state of things.
This isn’t just limited to whales either, there are quite a few animal languages that are being decoded. Possibly the most decoded one is that of prairie dog. Another example of one that has had quite a bit of progress is elephants, although I’m not sure how accurate this translator actually is, it shows kind of a cool picture of where we might be headed.
There are lots of other animals that people are using AI to decode the communications of and I am trying to keep up as best I can by posting whatever news I come across. I think it is one of the coolest uses of AI that is happening today, it should be cool to watch as this all develops.
That’s really amazing! Thank you for sharing and providing so many sources. I’ll be checking out the book you recommended as it seems like a good starting point.
You are very welcome! I think you will really enjoy it. Another great one is The Sounds of Life by Karen Bakker.