Can AI Help Us Communicate with Whales?

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New technology is revolutionizing how we study and protect nature. In this video, we’ll learn how artificial intelligence is being used to decode the sonic landscapes of the ocean - specifically, whale song. That’s right, there may come a day soon where AI allows us to understand and talk to whales. But some scientists are saying: the question may not be CAN we talk to whales, but SHOULD we talk to whales?
Want to learn more? Read "How to Speak Whale" by Tom Mustill: www.tommustill.com/how-to-spe...
0:00 Intro - What it's like to be a whale
1:44 Ch. 1 - The record that saved Earth's whales from extinction
5:01 Ch. 2 - Can AI help figure out what whale songs mean?
6:39 Ch. 3 - Living in a world of sound (umwelt)
8:25 Ch. 4 - How do whales make sounds, anyway?
10:26 Ch. 5 - We need to talk about the L word
11:51 Ch. 6 - How AI is already changing whale research
13:10 Ch. 7 - Training computers to listen to animals
15:46 Ch. 8 - How can we decode what a whale song means?
17:17 Ch. 9 - Making WhaleGPT is so much harder than we realize
19:48 Ch. 10 - Should we really be doing this?
21:43 Follow me to Planet Wild!
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Note: The thumbnail for this episode includes a picture of Joe Hanson created with a text-to-image generative AI tool
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[@besmart]

So… what would YOU say to a whale? When you're done here, follow me to Planet Wild to find out how we used drones to drop camera tags on blue whales! www.planetwild.com/besmart/14_2

[@ali.___..mrlegendman]

Whale

[@raouflevandovski7008]

It helps you talk to England

[@beautifullybroken5721]

I’m sorry about the ocean

[@A1Frizz]

Um, I bet y’all are pissed at us.

[@NomadicVoxel]

@besmart Psst, the link in the description is broken, put a space between the quotes and the link

[@Minty1337]

imagine we translate whale-song/speech and we find out the recording we put on the voyager record is something stupid like an argument

[@mayasu4277]

Or something about poop

[@clamhammer2463]

@@mayasu4277 what evolutionary benefit would there be to shouting up to 1000 km about poop?

[@mayasu4277]

@@clamhammer2463 I don’t hear us talking about evolutionary benefitial things all the time why should they

[@taylorrhyne502]

What if they are talking about foreplay? That would be embarrassing

[@MrFram]

@@clamhammer2463 you are currently talking to people about poop across 1000s of kilometers

[@CrashingThunder]

One argument to try to communicate with whales is that it would give us insights into how we could potentially communicate with other intelligent life in the universe. Much like in the movie Arrival, communication is about gathering context, gaining understanding, and making connections. Figuring out how to do that with whales is a tough challenge that we would learn from.

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

Us: "Hey, intelligent alien life. How's it going?" Intelligent Alien Life: "Have You Read The Three-Body Problem? The sequel's pretty good! Our culture calls it: foreshadowing..."

[@piedpiper1172]

@@supersleepygrumpybearUs: “Yeah, but the third book kinda fell off ngl. Anyway, wanna go with specicide or MAD?”

[@CharChar2121]

If we can't figure out how to talk to another mammal, I feel like we're fucked for communicating anything other than math to aliens.

[@pubudusenarathne]

Also we might learn a lot of stuff about earth and other animals and many more from those legendary species. I believe they have wisdom that transcends through their generations for all these years!

[@VonJay]

I think everyone’s missing the point. It’s not about using this info to talk to aliens, it’s just the human condition. We’re social animals and our happiness, survival and evolution is somewhat dependent on how social we are. And I’m not saying that from the perspective of us needing to talk to animals to ensure our survival and happiness, just from the point of socialization being part of the human condition. It’s an indelible part of our existence. Even as an introvert I would love to be able to know what a whale, monkey or tree kangaroo is thinking. How they think, how different it is from the way we think, or whatever. Connecting to others, even as an introvert, is just a supremely satisfying thing to think about and do. Now imagine being about to do that with a freakin’ whale.

[@kirnupiimaa]

"Sorry for making lamp oil out of most of your ancestors. It was very premium stuff though!"

[@immko]

not sure if ancestors is the best word here as it would be their moms, dads and grandparents.

[@davidpavel5017]

​@@immko yes, thats what ancestors means

[@ConcreteLand]

@@davidpavel5017🤣🤣🤣

[@lars3509]

Considering that whales have a lifespan of ~100 years, some even above 200 years it is more like "Sorry that we slaughtered your brothers and daughters for candles". Maybe a species that's kicking baby seals 50 m high in the air for fun would understand, though.

[@aboomination897]

sorry for collapsing your food chains

[@Linuxpunk81]

I am a retired submarine sonar tech and listening to whale song and other sea creatures was the only thing getting me through those long boring midwatches sometimes

[@ReginaldCarey]

Did you feel like you could recognize individuals?

[@Reefnow]

I do look for a job

[@diegoandrade3792]

Second to God 🤘🏼

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@diegoandrade3792 Which god, and why that particular one? What’s your best evidence it exists? The bible is the claim, and “look at the trees” or “everything that is created needs a creator” isn’t quite going to cut it, I’m afraid.

[@DanceFacility]

I'm an atheist, and just let them be. Don't try to "disprove" their beliefs or call them "gullible". Just be respectful. ​@@kellydalstok8900

[@planet-wild]

Thank you so much, Joe, for hosting our latest Planet Wild mission! Your passion and insights made the exploration of using cutting-edge technology to study blue whales not only educational but truly captivating. We're thrilled to have had the opportunity to collaborate with you on this fascinating project.

[@besmart]

Likewise! So proud to be part of your amazing mission!

[@MariaLlanos-rh3jc]

Thanks for what you are doing, guys! I’m impressed with your efforts and transparency!

[@JoyThiefTheBand]

I certainly hope one day we find a way to properly communicate with at least one species, and then maybe a few more people will start to understand the world we are part of, rather than thinking we exist separate to nature. If you pull back far enough, we're all one big organism on Earth.

[@66556086]

Hippie

[@JoyThiefTheBand]

@@66556086 Metalhead, but if loving the Earth makes me a hippie, then hell yeah. I definitely don't hate the mother of everything.

[@JoyThiefTheBand]

@@66556086 Metalhead, but if loving the Earth makes me a hippie, then hell yeah, brother. I certainly don't hate the Mother of us all.

[@itsgonnabeanaurfromme]

We as a species will never achieve that if people like this still think we are one big organism. Maybe learn science?

[@torobeltran1]

We can sign language back and forth with trained Gorillas.

[@Kirhean]

Why should we try to talk with whales: 1. Because it's cool 2. It's a learning experience for communicating with potential extraterrestrial life. 3. Being able to communicate with another species would be a massive boon for conservation efforts. 4. We share this world with them. If they're as intelligent as they seem to be, then we owe it to them to be better roommates, and opening a dialogue would be an excellent first step. 5. (this space reserved for black swan events)

[@schg1n_069]

You had me at number 1 ngl

[@The_Primitive]

number 1 and 3 are the most important

[@frankjames180]

I think number 3 is important and number 4 should almost be a priority.

[@slevinchannel7589]

Bonjour, stranger. I thought this channel's comment-section, if any place, would have smarteristic and smarttastic people. So i wanted to ask your opinion of a Project of mine, trying to help youtube help itself - getting it to become less of what can only be described as 'Messy' without wanting to use hard swearing... Hate, Threats, P0rn, Racism, Sexism, Scam, Spam-Bots, P0rn-Spam-Bots and much more. All of them are non-subtle (some more than others) and therefore easy to find. I used the reportbutton as it was originally intended; not as Cancel-Culture but to help. I mean, the r-button exists. Ist not a Myth. Get what i mean to say?

[@yayezoh]

You could just ask your mom what they’re saying

[@leeabney2974]

r/angryupvote

[@teaflavor8913]

Sick burn

[@me4r213]

Behave

[@denisdelinger3265]

@@me4r213ok dad

[@synthlordvr]

🤭

[@SciMinute]

Seeing this makes me hopeful that we’ll be able to talk to other animals someday! Honestly, I don’t think it’s that far off

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

My cat loves talking to me. Especially when she's hungry 😻

[@MisterMakerNL]

We already know a lot what animals say.... It's just not interesting, it doesn't go much deeper than very basic communication.

[@EveningGoDs]

Rick and Morty ~ Talking squirrels

[@kellydalstok8900]

@@supersleepygrumpybear Does your cat follow you every time you walk in the direction of the kitchen too?

[@MuffinHop]

Prairie Dogs have also been found to have possibly the most complex language after humans, we could try to talk to them as well.

[@Cajek2]

"Complex" as in they can identify any of the sixteen thousand annoying objects/creatures that almost step in their holes, right? Not "complex" in an interesting way, right? Lemme know if I'm wrong pls

[@MuffinHop]

@@Cajek2 Professor Constantine Slobodchikoff is an animal behaviorist and conservation biologist. He is a professor at Northern Arizona University and he has made a 40 year study of the language of prairie dogs. Their language skills are not only the most complex, but also have traits that are only ever displayed by humans such as displacement. Displacement conversation is talking about something that is not in Immediate sight. So far only humans and prairie dogs are believed to do this. Not even the other primates do it, nor whales or dolphins. His work is fascinating. There have been also cases of where prairie dogs have pre-planned to trap a snake disturbing a prairie dog town by planning dead end holes for these snakes and burying them alive. Prairie dogs have adjectives, verbs and subjects, so they are able to recognise individual species and where they are going. They also come up with new words and have different languages in different areas like humans have Spanish and Chinese.

[@franciscoyahari1593]

@@Cajek2 It's probably more complex than you think, or maybe not, we can't know at least for now.

[@MuffinHop]

They also have some kind of social chatter but we haven't cracked the rosetta stone to this due to lack of context and AI would definitely be an interesting use case for this.

[@franciscoyahari1593]

@@MuffinHop This is so cool!

[@MichaelStaghorn]

I'm not at all worried/thinking about what if those whale "songs" we sent into space are actually them being like "Help, the hairless monkeys are after me!" and "Save me from these brutal genocidal maniacs!" etc. Nope, not at all... 😬

[@ericarichardson2983]

It’s ok crew of the Enterprise took care of that in the 80s

[@MichaelStaghorn]

@@ericarichardson2983 🖖

[@jevinday]

Seriously though 😔

[@LuisCastillo-tg6xw]

Never thought of that before. Hopefully it won't backfire

[@liam78587]

and thus began the execution of our species we never saw it coming it was our fault the price we had to pay for our ignorance

[@newproductions4092]

Came back to say thanks for introducing me to Planet Wild. What a great initiative. Their videos are so hopeful. Cool that you’re a part of this

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

04:26. Also, in 1986, the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home a.k.a. The One With the Whales, made the existence of humpback whales a key for the planet's survival.

[@aliceignis]

Thank you for commenting this! 🖖🏻 I was very disapointed that this was not mantioned in this video! 😢

[@rowannadon7668]

My favorite movie. Lol. Directed by Leonard Nimoy

[@MT-xy2di]

I saw the Planet Wild video first,and then I came to your channel. Wow. Both videos are awesome. Thank you so much for your great work

[@besmart]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@michaelmeyers4843]

Shoutout to the time that Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz taught himself whalesong so that he could insult the macaroni and cheese recipe of a whale!

[@marcopohl4875]

That was evil!

[@benmcreynolds8581]

Sperm whale's sonar abilities really blow my mind. They are capable of using sonar as a weapon if they aim it and just blast things with extreme sonar. They also dive super deep and hunt squid in pitch black so sonar is crucial. It's fascinating

[@kevinamery5922]

Here's the thing: the question of "why would you talk to a whale?" is effectively the same as "why would you talk to an extra terrestrial?" All of the objections the interviewees made about talking to whales are just as valid when talking about, say, the inhabitants of Proxima Centauri C.

[@Shadow05eth]

This is a question that I don't quite understand coming from scientists. My answer to that question would be "Why not?". They dedicated their life to understanding whales so why wouldn't they want to be able to ask the whales their question directly? The same question could be asked about anything: "Why draw pictures?", "Why make music?", "Why study nature?" and the answer is simply "Because we are curious".

[@nunya___]

@@Shadow05eth Also, whale jokes. I want to know if they laugh. Some primate seem to and many animals show happiness and empathy for their friends/family (barnyard animals do) protecting each other from predators. So ya, let's see what they have to say.

[@gammaboy4568]

@@Shadow05eth "Science isn't about 'why', it's about 'why not!'"

[@GabrielPettier]

This video made me think about the possible consequences of learning to talk to them, and i'm pretty sur they would suffer from it, as we would quickly put them to work.

[@silver831cali3]

Aliens... Because of technology. It's like saying why would you talk to someone else who speaks a different language. Edit: learning how to communicate with another species is the starting point for future communication with aliens

[@CinderAndAsh-Metalworks]

This is the right use of ai in my opinion. Doing something that advances our understanding of something and doing something we couldn't do on our own

[@petsgamesandrobots438]

woah the new subnautica graphics are looking good

[@Peter-of7iy]

I love Joe and I love Planet Wild. So great to see them collaborate. I watched both videos and I learned so much about the fascinating world of blue whales. 🐳❤

[@ReginaldCarey]

6:28 As an AI researcher, it’s worth pointing out that what the host is asking is exactly what these large language models are. They learn to predict any signal. In any number of dimensions

[@TheGrinningViking]

Hmmm, they learn to predict an answer that the user would like. I think the current predictive models would tell a very interesting story about what the whale was saying, and true AGI would say "they are communicating location, desire to mate, food, pain, and little else "

[@ReginaldCarey]

@@TheGrinningViking that’s not how they are trained. At least not the base model. In the base model, the objective is to predict the next word. Using such a pre trained model, you could achieve what you state.

[@LimeyLassen]

If someone asked you to tackle this project, how would you approach it?

[@purewaterruler]

​@@LimeyLassenI'm not an ai researcher, but I know some stuff about ai, and the first sort of strategy for tackling this would be 2 fold: take these recordings of whales sounds, and try to use ai to categorize individual sections into different "words" of some sort. Then, we can rewrite the audio in terms of those words, and apply the transformer models to them. The first step would be much harder to get correct, especially with having to deal with the possibility of multiple voices occurring at the same time, but it at least sounds like a feasible path.

[@ForestRaptor]

@@purewaterruler This is the one AI would help where our ears and eyes and brains can't parse things evenly. good thing there is thousands of upon hours of recordings. Then use that to see how our current understanding of it "fits" those parsed "words", and yeah then applying it what we know is corolated and perhaps see what the image looks like from there.

[@elraviv]

17:58 The first whales appeared 50 million years ago, not 150 million years ago.

[@Stierenkloot]

And humans have been around longer than 100,000 years

[@joejoeington6899]

@@Stierenkloot in our current form

[@DrachenGothik666]

@@joejoeington6899 Anatomically modern humans have been around for roughly 300K years. It just took a long time for the technological advances to get going.

[@kpeteho6ot]

Yeah, what was that 150 million about. Sure you had ichthyosaurs during the mesozoic that resembled dolphins but were not really cetaceans. From what I remember it was 55 million years ago that ancestors of cetaceans first started adapting to aquatic life.

[@eroero830]

@@kpeteho6ot 150 sounds better

[@dmac7128]

Perhaps using AI to listen and understand whale song is best. I think one of thing they might say is "it's too noisy down here". One of the biggest threats to their long term survival is the steady increase in ambient noise due to shipping, fishing, and petroleum extraction, and their related activities. It stands to reason that they depend on their whale song for communication, navigation, finding food, and responding to threats. That is a challenge to deciphering a language if it exists. Whale songs are probably used for other purposes than speech.

[@cookicha]

17:50 Wait, what, 150 MY?! I thought whales appeared quickly after the -65MY extinction event. There's an episode on PBS Eons about it. Someone knows more?

[@meetontheledge1380]

They are WAY off with the 150 million years. Maybe they meant 50 million. YT seems to have cut off all my comments, but, for what it's worth...

[@pranavrai99]

Yeah the 150 million years thing is definitely wrong

[@refindoazhar1507]

At that point in time they still share the same ancestor with us

[@FunBotan]

CETI is hands down the most mindblowing scientific project going on at the moment. So mindblowing that we may not be ready for what we hear back.

[@WhyIsTheMooseLoose]

Hey! I just want to say thank you so much for your content! You are awesome (:

[@SandroBoka-ez6po]

This has to be my favourite video of yours. The quality and the content of this video truly was amazing. Keep on the great work.

[@besmart]

Wow, thanks!

[@crowlsyong]

9:46 lol I appreciate the editor or whoever did the MRI acronym here. Cheers.

[@maxmusterman3371]

Now google even harvest whales for their data

[@RPSchonherr]

It's a similar thing with birds. They communicate with what we call songs, Yet we haven't been able to really talk to them in their language. And we've been able to study them closely for a long time.

[@indianministryofilluminati3531]

Maybe birds are just using simple sounds to communicate, not language. Ravens are quite intelligent, and so are octopuses/octopi and chimps, but we're not focusing on them rn. The best candidate for having a language is currently sperm whale.

[@PlayNowWorkLater]

Umwelt!! Love this! I read about this concept years ago when I was going to university and exploring language, semiotics, and intelligence. So cool to see some current research and how it applies to Ai. Great video!

[@johannaverplank4858]

I was born in 1974, and I remember the Save The Wales campaign. It was everywhere. We even learned about it in school and studied wales. They are magnificent creatures.

[@wbbartlett]

Times have changed. Their language is now taught in their schools, it appears on the road signs & they even have their own parliament - all thanks to those campaigns to Save Wales. I'm not sure I'd call them magnificent though - they have an unhealthy interest in sheep.

[@Hunnid24]

This is basically a 23mins long ad for AI.

[@sanros3962]

Damn right, after all it deserves an “ad” even for longer amount of time

[@pranavrai99]

Wait, you made a whole episode about whale communication and did not invite the biggest expert in this field, Dory?!! 😱

[@besmart]

She kept forgetting our interview appointment!

[@pranavrai99]

@@besmart 😂😂🫶🏼

[@vexxi1470]

she got cancelled on twitter🐠

[@strider_hiryu850]

this is so exciting. i hope one day we can use this technology for conservation

[@TheOicyu812]

1:57 --- Growing up in the 70s, my parents had that exact same vinyl record of Songs of the Humpback Whale. Fond memories of listening to it. I wonder whatever became of that album.

[@dasiro]

16:32 Whales aren't the easiest to observe, but we already have other highly social animal species in observation. It wouldn't be too hard to fully cover for example a chimpanzee habitat with sensors and monitor a baby from the moment it's born until it's mature enough to communicate which usually takes much less than 5 years and that's for a very closely related species. Other species with a shorter lifespan would even be faster to comprehend such as our beloved pets: cats and dogs also interact with each other and mature in less than a year. So while whales are the biggest challenge, other species are a lot more accessible.

[@penguinista]

It. doesn't seem like very many animals have commuication that looks as much. like lannguage as whales, so studying them might not lead to a translator. Birds and bats seem to me like good potentials to study.

[@johnlash6511]

The whales probably would have a better conversation then most people I run into

[@psychoedge]

Being German and hearing about "Umwelt" as being a concept introduced to biology in the early 20th century, in turn spawning the field of ecology, is wild. In our everyday language it literally just translates to "surrounding world" - and just means environment and it feels completely natural to use. Hearing English speaking people of scientific background refer to Umwelt as "perceived environment of an animal" feels a little odd, like someone using a word way too specifically, even though they're not wrong. I would've expected that word to be way older, too (it was borrrowed from Danish and used since the 19th century, but only in a geographical sense). Thanks for providing this little trip into my own language's heritage.

[@_ninthRing_]

They would probably come to call us the "noisy, stinky people" due to the sheer volume of both noise & chemical pollution we saturate their sea with. Currently, the human generated noise from boat engines (louder than you'd think due to cavitation), sonar & even nets grinding up the ocean bottom, has got to be severely cluttering up their pristine ocean umwelten. Because of the extemely powerful low frequency signals it uses, deep sea sonar alone has been linked to hunsreds of whale deaths (Sperm & Minke whales), with it thought that the powerful sounds caused caused their (relatively) delicate ear bones to disintegrate (making entire pods of whales repeatedly beach themselves). It's a damn shame that we don't have more whale song from earlier in their history - before we decimated many whale species (+), killing the singers of old songs before they could pass them on, or the young ones before they could learn them. I would imagine their "lexicon" would have been profoundly richer, with songs going back centuries but also with the addition of new components from each new generation. (+) Not that some groups (like the Japanese) ever stopped the mass killing of whales. Their harvesting of whales for meat - & especially their goddamn horrific Taiji dolphin slaughter - continue to this day. The volume of public outcry, though, has reduced to a whisper.

[@RoyalDetailing661]

If A.I. is capable of decoding whale sounds that’d be an amazing breakthrough and could potentially lead to us understanding Migo’s and other mumble rap artists lyric’s one day. Absolutely terrifying!

[@jimmytaco6738]

I guess whale have to see.

[@ellayted9522]

*whale have to wait and see

[@Kabup2]

In a whale we'll know.

[@szhzs6121]

*sea

[@hcolleen534]

When I was in junior high, I wanted to be a cetacean sociologist...partially inspired by Star Trek IV, and partially by a science research paper I did then. I *loved* listening to whale song and had several tapes and cds, some with classical/new age music with the whale song. Thanks for the happy memories :)

[@OGNibblybits]

Alot of understanding animals is to learn body language. It's astounding how much they try to communicate. My dog I swear reads my mind

[@kjnoah]

We should talk to them. We could communicate how we can avoid bothering each other and instead of beaching themselves to keep from predation when they are sick, we could meet them, provide help and protection. We could ask them if they want to remain in a zoo or be free. Unless you are so narcissistic to assume to know what is best for them, it makes sense to want to ask what they think is best for them.

[@CharlesTheClumsy]

Are you ever gonna get older?

[@injunsun]

@besmart, what is hilarious is, when you get to the idea that wanting to communicate with whales is human-centred, all of the researchers use human perspective to answer the question, "What would you ask them?" What would *I* ask them? I would ask, "What is important to *you,* and btw, what is the general consensus among you about us humans?" I would want to know what they consider to be beautiful in sound, or whatever other medium they use. I would ask them what they might want to know about me, about us, about our arts and sciences. I would be open and honest. I would ask them what I could do for them, help them with, or share with them, Would they like to hear human music? Would they like to become famous as singers among humans? How can our cultures exchange in a way that would benefit our world?

[@crowlsyong]

13:36 You refenced a pretty important article here: Attention Is All You Need. This is really cool.

[@Istandby666]

Star Trek made a movie about whales and how important they are to this planet.

[@PistolPat]

"They like you very much, but they are not the hell your whales."

[@emilystrange4347]

Was looking for this reply! I thought this was going to be mentioned in the video!

[@anonymousbosch9265]

Firstly knowledge for knowledge sake is good and secondly if we figure out what whales are saying to each other it will give us insight into what we might say to them but learning what they’re saying to each other is enough for me to be fascinated

[@blondcub82]

The umwelt thing about a human way of greeting and asking another animal about how it’s doing… might work for an animal that doesn’t have an ultrasonic capability that can literally peer into the physical body and understand the physiology of what it’s encountering/examining. And by understanding how the physiological and biological processes relates to the body of the organism it’s examining in ultrasonic sensory… it may get enough information simply from that observation; that it never “needs” to ask the question. They may solely communicate about observations and needs and future plans of sorts. Their culture and language may be based around the fact that they can’t hide anything in a physical sense from each other… only deeply unique, private thoughts that are rarely sung out loud unless specifically pertinent. It’s fun to speculate.

[@rickseiden1]

I think I agree with folks in this video who are more concerned about listening to the whales than talking to them. It's not about what I say to the whale, but what the whale says to me that matters.

[@RoxaneJ14]

Sttaaaaaayyyyyyy cccuuuuurrriiiiooooouuuuussss hahahahahahah

[@adgmendes]

When we are talking about 'listening', from our umwelt(?), it does not mean somebody who is only passively listening. A good listener, for most people on earth, is someone who listen and speak back sometimes, to show they relate to your words, to say they feel something about what you're saying, whatever. I think we should be good listeners, if we can.

[@LEDewey_MD]

Wonderful video about a captivating subject! ❤

[@13orrax]

we need to figure this out before that whale probe from star trek iv gets here

[@NewMessage]

This is how AI and the whales team up to conquer us!

[@karlozfox]

Minute 5:30 and I'm sobbing. Why are these videos so good? ❤

[@NikoKun]

Amazing stuff, and I can't wait to see where it leads.. Although, the biggest issue I can imagine with talking to animals like whales.. is that if we abuse that ability, if we betray them or trick them, they'll quickly learn to ignore us, and future communication will become less likely.

[@hypercoder-gaming]

(I haven't finished the video yet but I just wanted to say this) When you said that it was one thing for ChatGPT to help you write a title for a video but completely different for it to interpret whales, of course ChatGPT wouldn't be able to do it. But AI in general can adapt to nearly anything. Since it adapted to human language, it's reasonable to assume it could adapt to whale language which is probably not much more complex (if at all) than human language.

[@itsgonnabeanaurfromme]

Did you think he was serious? Did you think he was actually saying to use ChatGPT for this?

[@irenafarm]

I hope we don’t take the AI generated language results too seriously. Based on how well ChatGPT is working currently, we’re likely to learn (incorrectly) that whales are plotting to multiply enough to displace ocean water and raise sea levels to drown the humans.

[@aominhthanh1c-20acn3]

Greatly appreciate for deliver such a dedicated and detailed content to the society.

[@injinii4336]

I think we should. Absolutely. I just want to know who they are and what their world is like. I have a difficult time believing that understanding them would incentivize us to treat them with less compassion.

[@40TM40]

Umwelt = environment ?

[@Edda-Online]

Yep. Umwelt is a German word and translates to environment. Heaven knows, why the didn't say environment.

[@GlenHunt]

AI can help us talk to whales, but it won't help us understand their laughing at what we actually say.

[@charlotteparadis4754]

Fascinating video, thank you! The idea of our human lenses getting in the way is so interesting! It must be quite s challenge to think outside of our human-ness: how can one identify what’s specifically human and what is more universal/objective? Some things are indeed quite obvious, as stated (I’m sorry, how are you), but I imagine there must be a whole array of things that maybe are more subtle and that impact the way scientists approach various questions.

[@LiFeeIsSMusicC]

I was most interested in the first part of the video , about the history of whale hunting , and how a song changed the perception of humans about it

[@DaanSlayer]

Whales first comment to humans - " Stop destroying my planet!"

[@CarlCoppinger]

Yup.

[@BeastlyP1g]

I love the thought of us investing years of AI development into understanding their language only to learn whales exclusively make "Your mom's so fat" jokes.

[@glenmorrison8080]

17:30 Ludwig Wittgenstein talked about this in terms of if we could converse with a lion. He reckoned even if we _could_ we would fail to understand each other. We probably see the world in such different ways.

[@WellSwole]

I feel we should try to learn how intelligent these creatures are if we are able to communicate. We could help them to get smarter.

[@THE-X-Force]

"A.I." can barely talk to humans.

[@JoyThiefTheBand]

For now. I think the last 24-36 months has shown us how drastically things can change with AI.

[@RobBrogan]

Having this technology doesn't mean we have to have conversations. I think it'd be immensely valuable to simply listen to them.

[@tannerbuschman1]

I really like these experts

[@Twapska]

"I Am Leaper" by Annabel Johnson was what I immediately thought of.

[@MrT3a]

"Learn to be better listeners" that stands true both toward animals and especially our fellow human beings. We should learn to listen to all earthlings. We stand to comprehend a lot more.

[@nameismetatoo4591]

I think the real key to getting this to work is testing different approaches using human speech. Train an AI on human speech without telling it what the words mean, only providing certain context clues. If we can get that to work, then the same approach should work with other species.

[@aqueuse]

best episode since ..... thank you !

[@stpfs9281]

Roger and Katy Payne! Biggest record pressing of all time?! Umwelt. Ai Whale tales, brilliant. 150 million years of Whales communicating with each other. The change in body language of a wild bird, when you mimic their sounds, is priceless! I've had Nuthatches come up to me to see what was making the noise, the dog I was walking with became very angry! Bullfinches replying and popping out of hiding to see me. :)

[@MaxShaffer]

Those whale song spectrograms on a poster would be great merch! I'd buy it.

[@davidschaftenaar6530]

I think that it'd be possible to construct a language model that could accurately capture the complexities of whatever language(s) whales are using to speak with each other. But just because it could 'understand' the patterns involved and produce appropriate responses to whales' sounds, doesn't necessarily mean that it can act as a Rosetta stone between our languages and those of whales. As you pointed out, there is very little that the world of whales has in common with our own. I think our best bet would be to go for what little experiences we do share as social, intelligent, long-lived mammals and build an understanding from that; Concepts like family, mother, child, food, breath, pain, temperature, sight, taste, smell, touch.

[@thetobyntr9540]

I imagine when they hear us wondering about the fermi patadox, it would go something like this: "there's these guys in a big cylyndrical space ship who like us and they check in every ten thousand years or so, you can say hi to them in a couple hundred years". I imagine while needing more weight, a spaceship for aquatic species would be more resilient to radiation and be better at attacking things in space by using that extra mass to ram through large structures. If something whale like became a spacefairing civilization then they would probably be upset that we drove whales extinct. Sound can travel insane distances underwater, so you dont need radios in that case, and the fermi paradox could be influenced by the proportion of intelligent species who are whale like.

[@StephenMcGregor1986]

I unironically asked an AI this question and it's response - "The idea of communicating with whales is fascinating, and AI could potentially play a role in facilitating such interspecies communication, though there are significant challenges involved. Some ways AI might assist in talking to whales include: - Analyzing whale vocalizations and body language using machine learning models to try to decipher patterns and potential meanings. AI could help identify distinct "words" or signals whales use. - Translating between the acoustics and timing patterns of whale communication and human language formats that are easier for us to comprehend. - Simulating and generating potential whale vocalizations that could be played back to whales to attempt primitive communication once patterns are recognized. - Controlling underwater robots or interfaces that could both receive and broadcast communication attempts with whales more naturally in their environments. However, the barriers are still immense. Whale intelligence, language capacity, and methods of communication are very different from humans. We may be fundamentally unable to communicate rich conceptual information between the species. Additionally, the risk of disturbing whale behavior or causing unintended harm through incorrect assumptions about communication acts as an ethical constraint on such experimentation currently. So while AI analysis and simulation tools could provide avenues for exploration, deciphering and communicating with an alien intelligence like whales may remain extremely challenging even with advanced AI capabilities involved. It's a fascinating goal that may require an extended "listening" period before two-way interaction can be realistically achieved, if ever."

[@Kaidhicksii]

I think the real question is if it would be a good idea. Someone elsewhere raised a very good point about just how these animals (or really any animal for that matter) might react if suddenly these weird 4-limbed land-dwellers began speaking to them in their language. They might freak out, and I wouldn't blame them, because I'd probably do the same if my pet rabbit started talking to me in English, adorable as he is.

[@TinyFlyThing]

I would just ask if they want to be friends and if they do, swim with them. Don't know if there is more to say? (I think "friend" or something along those lines is something that is universal to social species...probably)

[@MrChazasaurus88]

I could sway some hearts and minds. Imagine a legit recording of a whale saying something that equates to "humans make water dirty", lol.

[@smellthel]

A joint society of whales and people would be the coolest thing ever. Every experience we’ve ever had access to came from humans. Getting a completely different perspective from a being with completely different senses sounds mindblowing. Hopefully they’ll forgive us for what our ancestors have done though.

[@mistingwolf]

19:18 Excellent thoughts! Just because we really want to and may be able to, should we?

[@chrisaguilera1564]

Yes I saw Star Trek 4 the Voyage Home when I was a kid. I never knew they sang songs until then.

[@MissesWitch]

Whale album is just amazing! ❤

[@shaider1982]

It's nice we have this tech. I remember a story that scientists actually tried to teach English to a dolphin. That was definitely not the way to go.

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

5:40 - What's the exact name of the composition playing here? I recognize it, but can't remember the title.

[@UATU.]

“Farewell to Tarwathie” by Judy Collins has beautiful whale song. I can’t guess how often I played on my parent’s turntable. ❤️🐳

[@prathamsahil4029]

I have a doubt We release air to make sound so the whales must be releasing water right?? Also their voice box must be filled with water but they breathe air so is their voice box not connected to their lungs and they take in water air through some orifice on their body to produce sounds or do they use the air in their lungs to make sounds but that would mean that they release bubbles when they speak and they need to go to the surface earlier than they would have gone had they not used that air????

[@keithmofley8275]

To answer your question if we should. Yes, unequivocally yes. How would we ever know if we don't learn to ask. We share the planet, that's a good enough reason to learn to coexist better. Communication would drastically help that along.

[@takenname8053]

"Have there ever been wars between whales?" Is what I would ask

[@NelsonBrown]

Human: "Greetings, Mr. Sperm Whale!" Cachalot: "WTF did you just call me? 😡"

[@VOLKAERIN]

We need to speak and listen to learn.

[@Videoman2000]

I was on a wähle safari last year. I tried to convince the guide that by 2030 then they don't need to look for the whales anymore, they will just ask them come near the boat and do to something for the tourist in exchange for food or so. They didn't believe that it will ever be possible.