Google Develops Pathbreaking Artificial Intelligence That Could Help Us Talk to Dolphins

Being able to understand what other creatures that coexist on Earth, along with humans, want to convey could give scientists access to a world still closed to them. Though translating the worlds of all beings remains a far-fetched dream, in the case of one mammal, scientists have made some progress, stated Popular Science.

The dream has been made possible by Google. An AI system developed by the corporation can soon allow humans to talk with dolphins. Currently, researchers are in the process of testing if DolphinGemma and its companion Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry (CHAT) system can translate as well as mimic some of the complex vocalizations noted in dolphins. The technology incorporates four decades of vocal documentation related to dolphins. 

The system makes use of the directory developed by the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) across four decades. The project has garnered several audio and video of Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas. Through this data, experts have been able to figure out sounds that the mammals likely use for behaviors like squabbles, courtships, and getting called by unique names. The sounds were categorized into burst pulses, whistles, and clicks. 

Considering the fact that dolphins use distinct sound patterns for different behaviors that could be perceived by humans, many experts thought that communication could be possible. They believed that with the right technology, humans could mimic the clicks or whistles to express themselves to dolphins. However, no technology was able to complete this task. The recent popularity of Large Language Models, made officials at WDP speculate if providing their dataset to an AI system like this could facilitate communication. They partnered with scientists at Google and the Georgia Institute of Technology, who used their collected dataset to train an LLM.

The dataset helped scientists develop DolphinGemma, which uses the same technology that has been applied in Google’s Gemini systems. DolphinGemma would essentially receive audio input, interpret it, and then produce sounds which could be possible responses or follow-up, in dolphin language. Another technology developed for dolphin interaction by the team is CHAT (cetacean hearing augmented telemetry), according to Scientific American. This technology essentially involves a pack on a diver's chest and a unit on the forearm. The pack will recognize the audio, while the unit will play sound. 

The pursuit of this technology would be to understand if humans could develop a vocabulary with dolphins. The LLM model will make up a dolphin-like sound, which the divers will use to label an object. Afterwards, the divers will observe if the same sound is recreated by the dolphin or not. Experts want to be very careful with the use of technology, as they don't want to train dolphins to do anything, and strip them away from their liberty. The object that can be used could be dolphin favorites like seagrass and sargassum, or personal human belongings like scarves, stated Popular Science. Though full-fledged communication between dolphins and humans is still a faraway dream, the involvement of LLM has brought the pursuit one step closer.