Since the original Dr. Dolittle (1967) musical and the updated, more politically correct versions — Dr. Dolittle (1998) and Dolittle (2020) — many of us have fantasized about talking with other animals. And there are those of who regularly have conversations with our pets, regardless of their responses. There’s plenty of animal talk around, but the challenge is understanding it.
Starting in the 1960s, scientists worked to decode the whistles, clicks, and other sounds of dolphins and made progress despite early ethical faux pas of giving LSD to dolphins. Since then, decades of research have given us insights into the languages of marine mammals, primates, and birds, for example.
And, thanks to technology such as bite sized digital recorders, we’ve captured the sounds of a huge range of animals. Listen to animal sounds HERE, including species as rare as the UK’s wart biter cricket (Decticus verrucivorus) that inhabits just five sites.
Now, researchers are bringing artificial intelligence to the task, using it to analyze the reams of data from digital recorders attached to animals from shrews to bats. A recent book by Professor Karen Bakker entitled The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants reviews the use of AI in interpreting animal sounds.
Bakker explains how deep machine learning finds the patterns in the voluminous and complex data, saying that “Digital bioacoustics, combined with artificial intelligence, is like a planetary-scale hearing aid that enables us to listen anew with both our prosthetically enhanced ears and our imagination.”
So, what if we could understand the talk of other species? Says Bakker, “We're not quite sure what the effect will be on the animals and whether they even want to engage in some conversations. Maybe if they could talk to us, they would tell us to go away.” Indeed!
Researchers contend that decoding animal communication is not just fun, but significant in the future of our planet. Says AI & Machine Learning expert Kay Firth-Butterfield, “Understanding what animals say is the first step to giving other species on the planet ‘a voice’ in conversations on our environment.” One has to wonder what they would say.
And it turns out that even short of decoding animal language, some of us can interpret animal sounds, if they’re mammals anyway. In a recent study, researchers played the sounds of goats, cows, pigs, and several other mammals to study participants, who were asked to associate them with positive or negative emotions.
The results showed that more empathetic people (based on an “empathy test”), could better deduce mammal emotions from their sounds. People in their 20s also came out ahead. However, says study author Briefer, “It is also important to note that there is nothing to prevent someone from beginning to improve their own skills now if they interact with animals on a daily basis.” Zoo trip anyone?
