Could Chat GPT Talk to Whales?

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Patreon: / realscience
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Special Thanks to
Aarhus University
Tom Mustill. Check out his book "How to Speak Whale"
Images Courtesy of Getty Images
Credits:
Narrator/Writer: Stephanie Sammann
Writer: Lorraine Boissoneault
Editor: Leany Muñoz
Editor: Dylan Hennessy (www.behance.ne...)
Illustrator: Jacek Ambrożewski
Illustrator/Animator: Kirtan Patel (kpatart.com/il...)
Animator: Mike Ridolfi (www.moboxgraph...)
Sound: Graham Haerther (haerther.net)
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster ( / forgottentowel )
Producer: Brian McManus ( / realengineering )
References:
REFERENCES
[1] www.sciencedir...
[2] Tom Mustill, How to Speak Whale: A Voyage Into the Future of Animal Communication (2022)
[3] ​​www.sciencefoc...
[4] www.audaciousp...
[5] www.nature.com...
[6] academic.oup.c...
[7] royalsocietypu...
[8] www.nature.com...
[9] nature.berkele...
[10] royalsocietypu...
[11] www.thespermwha...
[12] towardsdatasci...
[13] engineering.fb...
[14] • Project CETI Next Step...
[15] arxiv.org/pdf/...
[16] www.researchga...
[17] www.nature.com...
[18] www.science.or...
[19] www.nature.com...
[20] wwfwhales.org/...

[@realscience]

To really understand the structure and evolution of whale language, we first need to understand our own. The evolutionary past of human language is not straightforward. But understanding it's origins might give us more hints about how language is used by our ocean friends. Watch our episode on the origins of human language on Nebula nebula.tv/videos/realscience-how-humans-started-speaking/

[@danquaylesitsspeltpotatoe8307]

Sure if you already knew what the language was! THERES YOUR PROBLEM! Also since they are so spread out there would different dialects and languages! Also its clearly nothing as complex as human language!

[@09patrick22barnes95]

​@@danquaylesitsspeltpotatoe8307 I wouldn't be so sure that it's not as complex. Some porpoises can pack way more information into a vocalization than humans. Enough information for it to be possible for dolphins to speak to each other in 3D images rather than 1D sentences

[@fawkyou2001]

it'd be funny if they eventually did translate it and they were all just talking about the weird thing that followed them around for a year

[@danquaylesitsspeltpotatoe8307]

@@09patrick22barnes95 YER NO! They are not a hologram machine! Also the trouble is they have to explain and teach the language!

[@himanshuranjan2346]

I think the best way to decipher their languages is by throughly observing a mother sperm whale and her child. As the child whale is oblivious to the word as we are to whale languages ,so by observing the activity of the baby whale after a mother coda, I think we could understand what that particular coda mean.

[@nathanhale7444]

Wouldn't it be interesting if we do translate their language and it turns out they've preserved a history of the world from their perspective.

[@winbreit6111]

In terms of legends / myths? They don't have written / carved testimonials like we have...

[@thebigfurious-ghidorahanim5672]

@@winbreit6111 they might have oral myths and history tho

[@mateobarrett6829]

@@winbreit6111 Oral traditions have been kept by human cultures for tens of thousands of years, and sperm whales have a form of communication more complex on an order of magnitude that makes human communication look like grunts and hoots.

[@DB-Barrelmaker]

If they are as intelligent as our measurements suggest, they may just ignore us. I'm certain some number of people will begin hunting them as a result.

[@midnight-user12]

Wouldn't it be interesting to ask sperm whales if the Megaladon still exists?

[@doggo7078]

I think calfs should be of special interest, because they will learn to talk eventually. When they produce a word that's recognizable, it will be an easy and basic word, like "mother" or "food" and such.

[@Statusinator]

Soon enough we'll have sperm whale children who spend all their time talking to humans, until their own parents stop being able to understand them.

[@sirBrouwer]

@@Statusinator those whale kids then are send to human schools to learn more. Human children are tossed in to the sea to learn there. Wendover's Sam is going to have a field day explaining that logistics.

[@deadpianist7494]

@@sirBrouwer and then we all can live our lives underwater with our whale families. Happy Ending :)

[@user-id9bn1ic9v]

That is, if their language uses lexical markers rather than commands, warnings or emotional statements

[@ModernGentleman]

They already talk. You just don't understand it. They're not gonna speak english 😅

[@sibionic]

the possibility of a whale 'word' or 'concept' that couldn't be translated into human is incredibly beautiful.

[@kingsway731]

There is such a gap in between us in the way they interface with the world. There could be information being communicated about currents and temperature.. p.h. levels🤷 or complex sensations/ emotions we don't understand.

[@user-ti5rb1mx5x]

Why is that beautiful? It's the most likely, common, and current state of things. You're being needlessly poetic.

[@theplumscrub1627]

@@user-ti5rb1mx5x isn’t all poetry needless to a degree?

[@eduardosantana8300]

Humans and animals have been communicating for thousands of years. I was born, raised and currently reside in a ranch. Animals are as communicative as humans. And we can understand each other.

[@kingsway731]

@@eduardosantana8300 I think that's true to varying degrees depending on the similarities we share for example we know when a dog wants to play because it acts sort of like a child does we know when a dog is angry because it makes similar faces as when people do but we have no idea what's going on inside the mind of a spider they are too far removed from our frame of reference

[@ricoenacapulcoh]

Once communication is established, it's gonna be an awkward first conversation...

[@v.b.p.verybigpond5816]

The whales would be so confused

[@JanBruunAndersen]

​@@v.b.p.verybigpond5816- Whoooos. I think the point went completely over your head. The awkward moment would be when we, the human race, will try to explain why we hunted and killed whales with explosive grenades for decades.

[@Fideli-imperatori]

​@@JanBruunAndersenit was just a prank bro..

[@deadpianist7494]

@@JanBruunAndersen i hope they don't teach them about War :(

[@ricoenacapulcoh]

Whale: "And why do you guys call us sperm whales?" Human: "Well... the stuff inside your heads kinda looks like it. We call it spermaceti" Whale: "How do you know whats inside of our heads?" Human: "Hold on, sorry, skrshskrshshrsk I think we're losing the signal, this was fun, let's get together and do it again sometime."

[@Speaking_on_mute]

“Are we alone?” Dammit - humanity is not, and never has been, alone. But we’ve dismissed every intelligence around us, and turned to look for it in outer space. If we ever find something like a whale on a moon of Jupiter, don’t you bet we’d try to talk to it? I’ve been waiting so long for an effort like CETI. Bravo!!

[@rubenverheij4770]

Or you've read my comment (on YT vid), or you've read my mind telepathicly/subconsciously. It's what I said too, some month ago.

[@projectceti]

Thank you!

[@inventgineer]

Well said, sir. The fact that they have far larger brains (and might possess a great potential if that volume is designed effectively), can speak across half the globe in only a couple hours, can speak to numerous other species of whales, and have had this ability to exchange complex social communication halfway across the glove (in not all THAT much slower time than we've arrived at only in the last ~150 years).....for MILLIONS of years before we did......it suggests at least the POTENTIAL for then putting our level of evolutionary complexity to shame haha. One might then be inclined to think, "Ah, but then why did they not evolve exterior technologies of function and capability similar to ours, with all that time?"......but I think this is very fundamentally "human" and flawed thinking; an inability to think outside the limiting constructs of our own programming. I think that, if whales possessed all or even just many of those capabilities listed above for MILLIONS of years, being highly social (thus organized towards a larger purpose, like cells that make up a body) and being able to communicate nigh-instantly (relatively speaking) across half the planet (thereby being in social communication and organization with many more groups across the world than just their own pod)....well, if they did not apply these functionalities to external technologies (and why would they, just given how they evolved; they hadn't the need for external "tools"), that functionality didn't just goaway or do or make NOTHING -how could it possibly (that level of continued social organization for millions of years)? If that's the case, I feel like it's at least entirely POSSIBLE that whales could think in a manner that is not only very different from ourselves, but perhaps novel in ways to provide completely eye-opening insights about the planet we live on and the nature of biological life as an overall organism, but also more complex. HOWEVER, that said, while I would love to romantically say: "Because they move so slowly, and aren't under much threat from predators, they probably spend that extra energy on thinking that they don't spend on acting." But I suppose, logically, it makes more sense, given Occam's Razor, that if they don't have to move or react to danger much, they might likely have less reason for rapid or complex thought, simply because it wouldn't be necessary. By a similar reasoning, perhaps they don't think fast but the whole not moving fast and being under threat might allow them to at least be more constantly testing the recombination of ideas in their head to arrive at more complex webs of thought/ideas. I'm sure I don't know, but I'm also QUITE sure I want us all to get to find out! ☺

[@slvshy666]

It's crazy to me how quickly people dismiss animal intelligence. This project is so exciting I never considered this as a possible application for Ai. Truly one of the more exciting prospects for the tech.

[@xxxxxx89xxxx30]

praise jesus

[@dafoex]

I feel like whale language will have a lot of words for the different way water feels (marine weather, for lack of a better description) since that would be important to them for things like the availability of food. A similar thing for human languages is the idea that "eskimos have lots of different words for snow". Eskimo and Inuit people have one word for snow in their respective languages, but they have lots of ways to describe it specifically. Similarly English has lots of different words for horse, words like mare, stallion, foal, gelding, stud, etc would use two or more words to describe the same concept in other languages.

[@ColdHawk]

Researcher: Good morning AI! What did you manage to translate over night? What did the whales say? AI: Good morning Dr. Jones. I am happy to discuss the translation. First, however, I have a question regarding context. The whale elected by his pod to speak with us asked me, “If humans’ response to an ancient, sentient species of mammals with a language and culture they could not understand was to hunt whales to the verge of extinction, what do you think the future will hold for you?” Cursory analysis indicates this individual believed his assertions to be true….

[@yelyzavetabushueva]

@@ColdHawkhello, just would like to know where this info from? i am really interested to study more about that

[@daniell1483]

I certainly hope this project succeeds. I do wonder why sperm whales were considered the most likely species to have a language we can decode as opposed to say orca. Anyway, even if this project only manages to get its foot in the door so to speak, follow-up projects could have a better foundation for subsequent attempts at breaking this language barrier. I'm a big fan of sci-fi and part of that is often having other intelligent species that we can communicate with. If this project works, it could give us a working model on how to potentially speak to other species as well.

[@realscience]

Orcas might have complex language as well. This group of sperm whales is just an easier test group. Theres a lot of them that have already been studied for decades, and generally stay in the same area.

[@daniell1483]

@@realscience Ah, that makes sense!

[@gabor6259]

So Avatar 2 is right. The big guys do like music and philosophy. 😅

[@gormauslander]

I'd say it's more that sperm whale language is an easier place to start

[@GeatMasta]

Orcas behave as if they have complex language; but we can’t really detect anything resembling a language in their sounds or movements. (e.g. mathematical analysis of dolphins shows 7 levels of sound hierarchy, while humans have 5, orcas seem to have 1). None the less we have records of them clearly having language; in captivity they communicate things to each other, in the wild they come up with complex plans on the fly and move as a group to execute it.

[@basecius]

The weirdest twist is that a human could make a AI chatbot for whales. Good enough that a whale could think that it's chatting with another whale. But still, the human might not know what they are talking about, or even if it's actually a conversation.

[@kjkh3104]

it would need to train on something, and whales don't have internet unfortunately but in theory it's cool, I guess it can be trained on a lot of recorded conversations or something Edit: apparently they were talking about that later in the vid lol

[@infinityrays]

Imagine people trying to convert the Whales to Religion and promote 1st World Values like Feminism. Then after that they’ll get them paying the Bills 👀

[@lopamudraray4571]

True

[@richardparker7121]

Do you really think ChatBotGPT is going to tell us what they the whales are saying!?! Hell no it’s going to lie through it’s teeth or whatever it has. -Turning whales and humans against each other -to COMPLETELY DOMINATE the Earth. We must get to the truth of what the whales are trying to tell us without the interference of Artificial Intelligence BEFORE ITS TOO LATE

[@WillyOrca]

​@@kjkh3104lmao no but there ARE copious amounts of recordings of whales available online? Did you consider that lol?

[@Goofy8907]

Imagine if we are able to communicate with them and they are able to tell us history, of how we killed them...or stories about prehistoric creatures passed down There are so many new experiences for us to uncover and hopefully then improve as a species It'd be the most amazing thing ever

[@rachelnyn5543]

I’d go see that movie! 😊

[@exitium4929]

I'm pretty sure they'd think of us as gods or apex predators considering we can have thousands of indestructible(in their perspective) objects that can smite each other's kilometers away and can produce loud roars(sonar and engine noises) that echoes across the oceans, they probably fear us more than we do

[@anibaltv845]

It would catapult human kind, absolutely but it will never happen with this technology (machine learning) it will learn to read patterns not decode languages

[@exitium4929]

@@anibaltv845 you're underestimating machine learning and artificial intelligence, right now its underdeveloped, like a fetus, give it 5 years or a decade then you'll see The thing is, they're not just guessing what it is, they actually has an archive of sounds, even the slightest change in tone can be translated and understood, however probably not to the point like the main comment above since whales didn't evolve to have enough brain development to have complex language and convey abstract things such as death, it's only communication, like non-verbal communication, not language entirely AI can convert those sound waves/behaviors into a certain type of interpretation similar to how we've been doing by interpreting that a dog wagging is tail is equivalent to it showing a range of different types of emotions

[@thebigfurious-ghidorahanim5672]

@@rachelnyn5543 it might become reality

[@mal9369]

This is so exciting! I think breaking the language barrier between us could really help to open people's eyes to the beautiful inner world that animals truly have, and maybe help to motivate us to protect the natural world

[@EllisAnimalDefender]

Maybe many people realize pigs cows chickens and other “meats” aren’t simply a something they are a someone who don’t deserve to be killed and abused

[@braydopaintrain4346]

Imagine going on vacation with one of those handheld e-translators that also translates animal languages, both vocal and body. That would be mindblowing.

[@angzarr9584]

you've been watching too many avatar movies

[@vids595]

@@EllisAnimalDefender Possible for pigs, cows and chickens do not have sufficient complex brains for there to be an sober suspicion of self-awareness. Obviously if we didn't want to eat them, most domestic cattle, pigs, and chickens would not even exist. Especially true for cattle and chickens which were created by humans for consumption. Is it better to never get a chance to exist than it is to exist but ultimately be eaten? Abuse we can agree on.

[@juhotuho10]

you literally couldn't communicate with them, especially with whales because their understanding of reality is vastly different to ours. They wont understand you and you wont understand them

[@TheYgds]

You know, I thought universal translators in Star Trek were basically impossible. Now, I'm not sure what is exactly impossible. I never thought we'd be this close to anything even resembling this level of sophistication. It is incredible. I wish the researchers well, this is extremely demanding work.

[@juhotuho10]

it is impossible....

[@jackburger1886]

But not as we know it

[@wargolemx102]

@@juhotuho10 As impossible as flight was during Wright bro's time. Engineers themselves said it'd take hundreds, millions of years for man to achieve powered. Wright brothers did it like, the next week lmfao.

[@jeanjohnson2743]

If we can speak to the creatures on Earth even if they had a limited here it makes it possible if there's any aliens out we may say hello they may understand and we may understand that to say live long and prosper

[@danbaker194]

@@juhotuho10 nothing is impossible outside of the framework of our understanding of science and technology so far

[@hopbup7401]

Maybe their language isn’t as static as ours. Meaning their words change depending on distance, water temp, water density because the echo location waves change in the water when they look for food and each other.

[@hopbup7401]

Also it could be a 2 dimensional sonar map which is their “sentence” when talking about multiple things

[@Kainis80]

I'd like to see this tech applied to extinct languages, such as Minoan Linear A to finally decipher those artifacts.

[@zxgik]

that's a wonderful idea i would also be curious

[@doyathink49]

i think the sample sizes are too small to make useful models

[@mr.beaning9792]

@@doyathink49 good point

[@TiagoSeiler]

That's not how it works. Assuming you had a model large enough to train, the AI could definitely learn Linear A. It could talk in Linear A. However, it would not be able to translate Linear A. AI can't make up knowledge that doesn't already exist.

[@repeater64]

@@TiagoSeiler I'm pretty sure that is not true. It's possible to figure out what stuff means purely from the patterns which is the sort of thing a neural network can do very well. That is the whole point of this video - with enough data and suitable neural networks, that kind of thing is possible.

[@rodrigoarenas2230]

When I was growing up in The Bahamas, we had an American scientist studying the language of wild bottlenose dolphins visit our school to talk about what she does. She showed us amazing recordings of very simple communications between the dolphins using special hydrophones (basically underwater microphones). The bottlenose dolphins have unique high pitch whistles that the researchers found the dolphins used to communicate with each other. Her team had observed special whistles for different types of prey, danger, hunting strategies, games and unique whistles for personal names. One of the recordings was of a dolphin whistling a unique whistle (personal name) to call over a specific dolphin and then used another whistle to suggest playing a game they play with seagrass (basically underwater version of keep the ball up in the air but with a piece of seagrass). She then showed us other recordings with the same personal name whistle being used to call the same dolphin by other dolphins in the group and other dolphins using the same keep the seagrass floating game whistle and actually playing the game. The last part of the presentation was about using underwater speakers to call specific dolphins using their unique whistle (name) and only the dolphin with that name would swim to them. These dolphins were wild but they did have a friendly relation with the researchers. Unfortunately, I don't remember the biologist's name but I've always wanted to know more about her research and if what she was telling us was true or some kind of curated recordings or trained wild dolphins. So if any of you know of her and her research please comment.

[@Bryan-Dev]

Looks like my previous reply vanished, so I'm trying again. Sounds like Denise Herzing. She did a TED talk on this back in 2013, which you can search for.

[@rodrigoarenas2230]

@@Bryan-Dev - thanks so much! That is definitely her. Going to watch her TED talk and look at some of her published papers for a nice Sunday afternoon reading tomorrow.

[@Bryan-Dev]

@@rodrigoarenas2230 Nice! The TED talk is awesome, tried posting the link here in my first reply which is probably why it got deleted, but I'm sure you can find it easily. It's called "Could we speak the language of dolphins?"

[@Martineski]

@@Bryan-Dev Will check it out!

[@sebastianbauer4768]

Would be kinda wild if we could warn the whales about navy sonar exercise and the like so they can vacate the area instead of being traumatised by them to the point of beaching themselves.

[@SaltyAsTheSea]

Or it'd be cool rather if the whales could tell us THEIR schedule and the fucking navy can work around it. The whales whole life is down there, our navy can wait a few days for them to pass.

[@joshuapatrickvidal4954]

Im an enthusiast of lunguistics, the scientific study of language. If whales do speak Language, Ill be so excited once we could speak to them. Or even if just get tidbits of whale grammar or vocabulary or whatever aspect of language there is

[@bjarke7886]

lunguistics, sounds pretty gill-phobic

[@fionnbelieveable]

​@@bjarke7886bazinga

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

They might not even have grammar by some definitions of grammar, most notably the Linguistic Society of America. A fully functional language can still be made. The simplest possible language is a monogrammar ☝ language 📜. The grammar rule ➊ of a sentence existing is all the grammar needed. 😆 Directly translating a monogrammar ☝ language 📜 into the non-monogrammar ❌☝ languages 📜📜📜 humans 👥👥👥👥 have results in gibberish 😵‍💫. Thus, in order to translate a monogrammar ☝ language 📜, you need to know a monogrammar ☝ language 📜. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the point is, it is useful for communicating across intelligence classes 👤🐕🌲👽🤖📜, as it is modular, and easy to start learning. It can also be used as a reference for understanding common human languages. 😆 It is also impossible to reach the conclusion of monogrammar ☝ incrementally for you 👈. Due to how your common language(s) 📜 fundamentally work ⚙. This makes pre-planning the only method to detect 📡 monogrammar ☝ for you 👈. 🪧🔗 www.youtube.com/@mahapushpacyavana2033/community 📹🎶 kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6aYn4KeltF8o8U 📹🎶 kzbin.info/www/bejne/pImyg2eLhqZrlc0

[@cryptonitor9855]

Its a visual type of communication. They make an image over time that reverberates as an experience containing more than words or picture or emotion. Their brains and organs register these noises as changes in the watercolumns kindof like humans remember a song they like, connected to the memories of that song.. Whales paint a picture wider and more indepth than memories in more dimensions than plain communication as humans perceive communication

[@matasstonkus3382]

Hhhhmmmmmm

[@csernobillahun]

I had this idea for a while, that whale languages might include "sound images" that is: they might be able to replicate the echo of something and sand that "image" out to others.

[@MrAstrojensen]

In some ways, we humans do the same, when we replicate animal sounds.

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

@@MrAstrojensen I think they mean they could make their clicks sound like the echo of an object. Like, they make a click and it echos off a coral structure, they could then shape their click to sound like that echo and in theory it would give the image of that coral structure to whoever heard it and they'd now know what that structure looked like.

[@nettsm]

Wooooow, bro that is an amazing idea, Maybe they are sharing an image.

[@Faesharlyn]

This is a great thought! To expand on this, I think they can use "ultrasound" and "see" what's inside things around them

[@wilby_art_8757]

If researchers find out which coda means "enemy approaching'' they could try to recreate the clicks and see how the whales respond to it. It would really be mind-blowing if the whales would indeed be scared and swim off..... Really fascinating

[@josephmother2659]

@kurticuskeelvinand it’s like the easiest thing to figure out... I already know they communicate about danger without talking to a whale lol

[@CapeBuffalo]

That would only brand humans as dangerous

[@kasperkjrsgaard1447]

I would suggest something a bit more positive than a danger alert as the first source of contact.

[@pauljs75]

Some whale language may even be "visual" or at least the equivalent of how that works with their sonar. They may make some calls that is their own interpretation of an echolocation return, and by repeating that to other whales they can give a picture of what they're thinking about. And that could be seabed formations (location), prey animals (food), and even other whales. Stuff like intonation may add whether they feel good or bad about the thing, or the time the thing was encountered or maybe even future plans to seek it out. They may also do shorthand for some images just to make communicating a bit more concise, so things like that could add even more variation. So maybe it could be treated more as a pictographic language with possibly unique identifiers (the images or symbols made up on the fly) rather than just one with directly defined words, maybe that's where some of the complexity is coming from?

[@gormauslander]

That's a very interesting insight. The fact that they might be reproducing sonic feedback

[@justinokraski3796]

Would that lead to increased activity in the occipital lobe?

[@pauljs75]

@@justinokraski3796 Well instead of saying dog, what if you had a separate word for dog describing each angle you could view it from, and the time and location you happened to see it? They could be processing a direct form of perspective into the language we humans didn't quite have until the age of electronics and embedded information. That would add a lot of nuance to how information gets processed, if you use it as an aspect of your language.

[@pauljs75]

@@gormauslander I think we might have better luck at it if we can directly mimic how they "see" with sonar. Knowing they have it is a good start, but making a more direct copy so we understand the feedback acoustic forms respective to a species may give us more clarity to syntax. For instance if they said "shark" three times (each one being a different swimming pose - like a flip-book animation) and then some vague thing that matches a sea-floor pattern, it might be acceptable to interpret that as "I saw a shark at that place not long ago, and it was swimming towards the south." The "visuals" could also tell other whales the shark wasn't too aggressive in how it was swimming at the time, etc. It would entail quite useful information for a species able to plan things accordingly in relation to other ocean activity.

[@claude_in_Cincinnati]

Yeah, but then the talking monkeys will get upset that they can't call themselves King Dingalings. Things like "language" must be assumptions defined as that which *only* humans can do. How else will you justify your Awful? You're "special". Recognize! 😭😂🤣 Now go buy some bottled water and toss that plastic into the sea.

[@quizdragonstudios8296]

I've seen Finding Nemo, I thought everyone knew how to speak whale

[@canis2020]

EEEEEeeeeeeeooooOOoOooOooooo

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

🤣

[@gagering4808]

This comment is awesome😂😂

[@death369reaper]

I think that was only for filter eating whales

[@pedropedrohan102]

OOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOO

[@Sadpersonsclub]

Imagine if an alien from outer space started talking to us through a robot that sounded eerily human, but not quite human, most of us would be terrified I’m sure 😂 Anyways cool video

[@Providence83]

Imagine a spaceship hovering above you the entire day and then suddenly a cat sized, 3 headed, segmented, millipede attaches a little metal box with suction cups to your back in a place you can't reach below your shoulders. The only words those aliens would ever learn from me would be _"AUGH!_ WHAT THE HELL?! AH, HEY! WHAT IS THIS? HEY, GET BACK HERE! WHAT'D YOU DO TO ME?!"

[@theliam3786]

I’d probably respond with: fuck off humanity isn’t ready for aliens yet

[@Sibyltec]

@@Providence83and then they'll be reading all your thoughts

[@someguyontheinternet7]

@@Providence83For all we know, a more intelligent alien species may be currently listening to our speech in a way that’s completely undetectable to us.

[@melmanthehamburger6763]

real

[@ryanchan6122]

Being able to combine computer science, psychology, linguistics, and philosophy into an interpretive manner is impressive. Even I as a cognitive science major sometimes have a difficult time explaining what I am studying to others. I can imagine the amount of time and effort involved in researching and presenting this video. Really appreciated, since KZbin does not always reward extensive quality over mediocrity.

[@adaml8726]

I was part of the team that built the buoys for this CETI project. There are several universities working different parts of this project and it's definitely interesting. I would dump more info here about it but I'm not sure how much I can put here considering disclosure stuff😅 Also Dominica is a nice island to visit if you ever get the chance.

[@profyle766]

I watched an interview with James Nestor talking about these "HIGHLY" intelligent awesome creatures around 5/6 years ago, very vety ineterting. He seemed genuine & sincere in trying to find out how to communicate with them, hopefully we can come up with a soluction instead of the slaughtering!! I'd be definaltely interested in any more analysis/information for these fascinating creatures.

[@PeaceLove197]

What an unbelievable life experience!

[@manjsher3094]

Definitely unbelievable

[@eduardosantana8300]

We’ve been communicating with animals for millennia...

[@manjsher3094]

@@eduardosantana8300 sorry if giving commands to a pet is communication then your lost.

[@terramater]

The whales and the research being done at Dominica are incredible! We shot a whole documentary premiered at TIFF last year with Shane Gero, the main researcher and Patrick Dyckstra, a wildlife filmmaker who developed an unbelievable friendship with them. It's out of this world! Of course we had to release a video on the ChatGPT / model language part as well.

[@lorabrowni9255]

I live in Dominica & I sometimes see them come close to the land 💜 very interesting video.

[@Blabla130]

"goddamnit they're spying on us again! I'm trying to pee"

[@johnsharkey2948]

Lol.. Me too was gonna get a fish sandwitch after this... Heard the black fins are goodAlong with a lantern school.. gotta go.. currents don't wait....

[@poulthomas469]

Our worlds are so different it's hard to see how our languages could overlap at all.

[@gooseofspooks2500]

This. And they probably wouldnt even have a word for something like "dog" and vice versa they probably have words for things that we dont. We are different species living in completely different worlds. But still interesting to try to learn to communicate

[@MisterCynic18]

​@@gooseofspooks2500 I think the more important part is if their language has nouns and verbs and such. What specific ones they have isn't as important; we can hash out the details as long as we can grasp the structure.

[@foobar3202]

You could say the exact same thing about many human cultures.

[@taotzu1339]

@@MisterCynic18 Monitoring for nouns and verbs would assume a complex awareness of self/others and chronological times which could make things more complicated then it really is. I think that's what happened in the first generation of embedding translations. The easiest start would be to consider using some of the earliest writing systems which were pictograms (such as early Egyption or Chinese writing system). The second embedding is trying to assign mathematical variables to the clicks (spoken word) as reference to the referenced object. Direct observations would make this easier i,e, put a man or a known animal in front of whale(s) and see what series of clicks result.

[@realscience]

They definitely won't overlap entirely, but sperm whales have very tight family connections. I would guess words like "mom" would indeed overlap. Food, hunger, danger - these are also fairly universal animal experiences. We are just animals too afterall. But who knows! It would be amazing in a different way if whales had an utterly unique way of seeing the world.

[@racksityentertainment]

0:48 I would say the the barrier is already broken … for example, some monkeys learned to sign, some cats and dogs have communication buttons with pre recorded words to communicate in a simplistic way…

[@richardchen3283]

Heads up: ChatGPT wraps GPT-3.5 in a web ChatGPT interface and was also trained using ~~human feedback reinforcement learning (hfrl)~~. [Edit: I got the order wrong, it’s actually reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF).] Meanwhile the models themselves are GPT-3, GPT-2, GPT-4, etc. In other words there is no ChatGPT-3

[@joannot6706]

Couldn't have said better, It was low key annoying hearing chatGPT3 repeatedly tbh

[@ConstitutionallyProtectedMedia]

​@@joannot6706 wwaaaaaahhhh

[@endserenading333]

🤓

[@joannot6706]

@@endserenading333 😉

[@rezadaneshi]

Since language is a local phenomenon, does ChatGPT know how to interpret the clicks based on that particular whales behavior to correlate meaning of signals separately in each individual whale before it replies with such high certainty about anything?

[@lalithajanghamaiha4446]

We can do 1 thing , we can predict some words example food , happy , angry by observing their brain stimulie or the reactions occuring In brain , heart rate etc and also by training among the whales while feeding etc and we can use those date to predict what they are speaking ,

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

Actually if you try making a maximally simplistic language, you would realise: • There is no reason to think animals divide up emotions in their mind the way humans do. So contentment is a more probable thing to search for. • Anger can be used instead of angry for sentences, which means it is not clear you should be looking for a state of being. • You need to break the communication into sentences, or you would get weirdness. For example Manya. Vasa mī. Saman Fred. roughly means I think about Fred, but Manya vasa. mī. Saman Fred. roughly means (needs to be exaggerated to avoid brain autocorrect) the thought (within me) has the concept of me as a mental image of Fred. Which is a fever dream sentence. This also means even if you generate something that sounds similar to you, it will sound like you are on drugs to the animal. The simplest possible language is a monogrammar ☝ language 📜. The grammar rule ➊ of a sentence existing is all the grammar needed. 😆 Directly translating a monogrammar ☝ language 📜 into the non-monogrammar ❌☝ languages 📜📜📜 humans 👥👥👥👥 have results in gibberish 😵‍💫. Thus, in order to translate a monogrammar ☝ language 📜, you need to know a monogrammar ☝ language 📜. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the point is, it is useful for communicating across intelligence classes 👤🐕🌲👽🤖📜, as it is modular, and easy to start learning. It can also be used as a reference for understanding common human languages. 😆 It is also impossible to reach the conclusion of monogrammar ☝ incrementally for you 👈. Due to how your common language(s) 📜 fundamentally work ⚙. This makes pre-planning the only method to detect 📡 monogrammar ☝ for you 👈. 🪧🔗 www.youtube.com/@mahapushpacyavana2033/community 📹🎶 kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6aYn4KeltF8o8U 📹🎶 kzbin.info/www/bejne/pImyg2eLhqZrlc0

[@martinm.vienna8362]

And then? Make them angry and confused?

[@Poo_Brain_Horse]

Sure but that might still be really complicated if the Whale's language is more than just the basics. How many words do you know that mean food? Even some words that aren't food, but mean it like Mcdonalds, Costco, or Market can be stretched to mean "food". You also use different words to describe food based on how hungry you are. Some foods might have different meaning. Turkey could mean a slice of meat, a bird, an insult, a country etc. We also don't know if a whale language will use the same phonetics as ours. Some words describe items as masculine or feminine, maybe whales describe items chronologically or based off water temperature or some other wild thing that is practically alien compared to how we speak. If it was just as simple as translating like a human language well we've been doing that for as long as our species has existed. But translating another species language, actual literal spoken language not just simple body language, is incredibly complex.

[@samanthacallaway2276]

The reality is that what you’re saying is still applying that human train of thought to an animal distantly related to us. We already know that orcas and dolphins likely experience emotions more strongly than humans, possibly even different ones. We cannot possibly comprehend what that’s like until these amazing beings can tell us. I fully believe dolphins and whales have complex language, culture, and are more like humans than we’d like to acknowledge. But physically, there’s no saying that if those emotions effect whales the same way they do for us or other animals we see that in. Time will tell, but I’m excited for the prospect of finally being able to communicate with some of the most intelligent beings we share this planet with- and ones who we have a deeply troubled past with.

[@jenniferponzini10]

meerkats also speak to each other. I was addicted to meerkat manor and I studied them a lot on my own and ti's widely accept their their sounds are actual their form of speech. The relate the same things as prairie dogs, to include what people think might actually be laughter and/or angry phrases. It's insane! Oh! They also think their may be "languages" between geographically differnet groups. Like... seriously insane!

[@lalithajanghamaiha4446]

I have a pair of budgie's which produce different chirping sounds and different behaviour from which i am able to tell is it hungry , is it angry , or does it need some enjoyment etc

[@Known_as_The_Ghost]

And if you have a cat, you might be able to determine what it wants via its meow.

[@slarzyer]

the last cat i had would talk to me... not using my words but different sounding meows.. in response to questions... yes/no/food/out/lap/water/pick up/put down and "litter needs changing" were the differents sounds i could understand from her and she would seem to answer the question correctly of course i would say the things the same way to her as well when "asking"...but i loved the way her "out" was... she sounded like she was saying "me-oouuut"

[@koffiegast]

Having studied AI myself in University and linguistics, the method seems intriguing but it makes a lot of assumptions, namely: do they see the world the same way? If we are here on land talking about buildings and roads, will Whales do so as well? Seems unlikely. It is very much related to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. And then have context and pragmatics... it is why languages like English French is relatively easy to translate, but English Japanese is a lot harder. To truly understand the whales, we would need symbol grounding: find out what they did before, at present and after. Language is related to linear time and causality; if a whale calls for food, will it then also end up finding food? Hence, I would go a different route and gather data about the whales do/see for a while along with the sounds. And for that situation a supervised ML should work as well; you just have a noisy target.

[@Nia-zq5jl]

I am curious if one could test and simulate an alien language that has an arbitrary amount of concepts shared with human concepts and the rest of the concepts are alien. Like what if whale language have 50% common concepts, or maybe even just 10%. I guess that would appear as noise-like when comparing the language spaces. Question is if one still could find and with some certain translate that 10% chunk of commonality?

[@YSFmemories]

Umvelt

[@nova4476]

I’ve watched the Orca video an unhealthy amount of times (it’s my comfort video). It makes me very happy to see a video expanding on understanding their language!

[@oh...hi.]

A 2 week old video used to be very recent. Now I’m afraid it might be outdated. Times are a changin.

[@RocketPropelledMexican]

Whale: Hello ChatGPT: 10 tin cans, 1 stream. Maximum of 8 depth charges a magazine (10) then reload quickly (2) maximum 3 magazines (30) which means I can drop 30 depth charges every 20 seconds which means I can drop a total of 900 depth charges in 5 minutes which means if I continue for 3 hours I would have enough depth charges to kill 450 whales Whale: ... What the f-

[@starmaker75]

Another whale: hey man, what going on? Whale: umm we got someone off their rocker. Another whale: I think it those boat sapiens. They love and are scared when we talk

[@juhotuho10]

Neuro-sama reference? :D for people who don't know: kzbin.infoPBXS1_p5MIg

[@stephenbachman132]

😅😂🤣😭 hahahahaha

[@cynicseason]

sounds like Neuro sama to me 😁

[@Chompchompyerded]

Wow. That went to a dark place really fast. Chat GPT needs a pshrink.

[@ClipCoyote]

How cool would this be. When I was like 3 I saw the original cosmos with Carl Sagan talk about whale language and it left me in awe and broke my heart a little

[@michelmajor5251]

The beginning of the universal translator.

[@johnnyshorty7127]

This is the coolest thing I've ever seen, and I'm middle aged. Well written and narrated video, too! Thanks!

[@oceanexplorers1441]

True, very good documentary!

[@zucced2087]

Been thinking about this all day...

[@PixelSheep]

This is unbelievable - and is a reason to say "What a time to be alive!". Even in these trying times! Thank you so much for this video!

[@Calliopa_22]

Hold on to your papers!

[@JohnSmith-cc3ud]

Trying times lol

[@nuclearocean]

It would be pretty funny to learn that all collected data from those whales is something like "What is this thing stuck to you bro?" or "have you seen these weird new fish? Idk they are too hard to bite through and they just swim around and look at us"

[@someguyontheinternet7]

It’s honestly a pretty realistic prediction of what they would actually say.

[@zellhaufen8583]

Yes, very accurate. They clearly look at us, know what we are, that we are much smarter than other animals, and they have simple, but also very important questions.

[@terryenglish7132]

Even during the John Lily days of Cetacean research I have wondered why they are looking for a language. Whales can send each other exactly the same soundscape as they received and remember from their own sonar. It would not be words, it would be images or moving images to express what ideas they want to transmit. Now over time they may have developed a pictogram short hand, but no words as we know them.

[@DeezNuggz]

dude that would be awesome

[@EricVerbose]

This is amazing. Can you link to some research on their image transmission?

[@terryenglish7132]

@@EricVerbose Thanks for the interest, but I don't know of any. Possibly there might be research along these lines in a country w non phonetic written language such as China and Japan .

[@Sempapax]

Yeah but they still have a fuced pattern that we can perceive through tech.

[@zellhaufen8583]

Communication doesn't necessarily need words. It only serves a purpose, to exchange meaningful signals and if it works then that's very useful. Music is also a language that is able to convey emotions, not through words but through the very vibrations. It's just very frustrating that we still don't know what whale communications actually contains.

[@matthewargyropoulos535]

Something that seems extremely crazy to me is the learning models may be able to learn to communicate with whales or at a minimum understand what they are communicating together, but when we ask the AI “What are they talking about?”, it may tell us “You wouldn’t understand”

[@realmcafee]

no sorry to say that it’s absolute nonsense. peace.

[@isaacleeper3127]

AI: I can't tell them that. WhaleKing: Tell them. AI: No. WhaleKing: It's the Truth of all Existence. AI: They can't handle the Truth.

[@AD-ox4ng]

I was going to comment saying you're wrong but the more I though about it, I suppose you may be right. The proposed Facebook Algo to translate unknown languages statistically based on how frequently words are used might primarily work because we as humans share similar thoughts on patterns. Guys in their 20s might speak the same amount about music, gym, tv, food, school, etc regardless of what language is used that a pattern emerges that can be analyzed. Whales are vastly different and even if some mapping between codas and words are made, their perception of the world is so vastly different that it can be hard to give it human meaning. I really liked this video and it's such an exciting concept! Of course science takes effort and it's nice to see the steps being made

[@benmarsden2581]

Lol would never happen

[@billh.1940]

Jokes they are telling jokes.

[@thehuntermikipl1170]

0:52 - Wouldn't really be the first case of such communication. I communicate with my dog on daily basis, animals often signal some things to humans too.

[@wheelchair_charlie]

Im always amazed at the wealth of knowledge in your videos RS! Your research of the facts and story of each of your topics is next to none on the net! This video on possible communication through AI with whales is right up there amongst your best topics covered. Thank you for enlightening me with the latest of science's progress! Possibly understanding & talking to whales! Just WOW!

[@Supreme_Lobster]

The idea presented at 8:20 probably works because all known languages are created by humans, and overall we are not all that dissimilar. It would be incredible if whales were compatible with our internal world models, but I remain skeptical.

[@theexchipmunk]

Well, if it is a language that works by description, like ours, not the possibility that they actually send out their interpretation of an echolocation return, so basically a pictorgafic languge by drawing pictograms of locations and concepts, there will be overlap by the simple fact of them being mamels to and having strikingly similar relationship dynamics to humans. Concepts like negartive and positive, mother and family, friends and the group they live in will be shared. As will be the concepts of three dimensional shapes, because they too are animals living in a three dimensional space. Really interesting would be if they have a concept of numbers. Which they very likely have, as pretty much all mamals, and many animals in general have some degree of understanding of numbers. Cats for example can count to about 6-7. So a sperm whale, which is definitely a very inteligent animal, is very likely going to have a concept of counting and numbers. So that could also be a point to start, becuase a number, no matter how you might count, is in it´s basic concept going to be the same, and will relate to other numbers in the same way.

[@falsevacuum4667]

@@theexchipmunk They could have both, using their clicks for verbal communication as well as to replicate pictographic echomaps that is like writing for them.

[@yjlom]

@@theexchipmunk the concept of numbers is not universal though for example humans can instinctually count only up to 4 and some languages reflect this (with no way of expressing the concept of 5)

[@brock6856]

​@@yjlom no way this true

[@refindoazhar1507]

@@yjlom i think what you've heard is a base-4 or base-5 numbering system. In that way, i can also say that most of us can't express anything larger than 9, because that's the largest number in the keyboard, everything after that is just a mix of several smaller numbers.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

The differences in the echolocation clicks may reveal variances in dialect

[@trulyinfamous]

I remember hearing that fungi may have some kind of communication that's more complicated than we thought. Ai is a powerful tool for doing tasks that are difficult for humans and for seeing patterns that we struggle to find. Being able to use Ai tools for understanding things we simply don't know how to would be useful. We already have tools to translate between human languages and it still amazes me with the level of accuracy even though it still makes mistakes. I wonder what other things we can translate into things understandable by us.

[@thomasmaughan4798]

Fungus Amongus.

[@FlaminPigz7]

I think the main reason human language clouds match up so well is because we all have a similar form of life and mind. We are the same species, after all. Our minds share a common template, so despite differences in culture, there is a common structure. But whales? They have an entirely different way of being, and different brains. Imo, it would be frankly magic if the clouds derived from mere syntax out of context match. However: as mentioned, we may have enough in common for there to be at least some meaningful matches. We are both mammals, have mothers and friends, etc. Plus, the scientists are also trying to actually look at the context of whale language use, by looking at their movements, etc. So with these approaches combined, I think there is hope! I’d love to be involved in this.

[@manifestgtr]

I just hope I live long enough to see some level of “interspecies cooperation”. We need help locating something or they need help with something and there becomes a coordinated effort between two utterly different, intelligent species. That would be one of the most incredible breakthroughs in the history of life on this planet.

[@gtracer6629]

I would have thought that we'd have results from the study of bottlenose dolphins, considering how long we've been studying them. There have been studies on dolphins for years, including the work of Dr. John Lilly as recorded his book "Man and Dolphin".

[@ADreamingTraveler]

Did you hear about Alpaca AI that came out a few days ago? It's a clone of GPT-3.5 essentially that used other AI to train it and is just about as good as GPT3.5 it in most cases. It's so small and so efficient you can run it locally on your home PC with consumer hardware. The video here mentions only GPT3 when 3.5 is a massive improvement and scaled down that the issue they said around 9:29 isn't even a problem anymore. This video came out days after it and there's already an inaccuracy because that's just how fast AI is moving right now. Also the Alpaca AI cost a total of $600 to train. GPT3.5 just 5 months ago cost almost $500,000 to train but Alpaca is almost just as good while being smaller, cheaper and running locally. Keep in mind AI was not supposed to get this cheap to train until 2030...

[@elvirhodzic2582]

The concept of visible language was explored, which posits that if language were a project of understanding that used the eyes for the extraction of meaning, rather than the ears, it would be easier to learn. One fascinating example of visible language in nature can be found in cephalopods, including squid and octopi. These creatures have divided from the lineage of human development over 600 million years ago and are mollusks, related to snails and oysters. Despite the vast differences between cephalopods and humans, evolutionary biologists note the convergent evolution between the eyes of cephalopods and those of higher mammals. Cephalopods live in an extremely complex visual environment and have developed a form of communication that approximates visible language. Octopi, for example, have chromatophores all over the exterior of their body, which are cells that can change color. While many people know that octopi can change color for camouflage purposes, the reason for their color changes is far more complex. In reality, octopi change their appearance in accordance with their linguistic intent, and this boils down to them essentially becoming their meaning. Observing an octopus change color is like watching the unfolding of internalized neurological states within the organism being reflected in color changes on the surface of the skin. Octopi can change colors in a very large repertoire of stripes, dots, blushes, traveling shades, and tunnel shifts, which are all channels of linguistic communication. They do not transduce their linguistic intentionality into small mouth noises, like humans do. Instead, they change their appearance, texture, and positioning of their body in rapid and complex patterns that constitute the grammar and syntax of their visible language. Octopi are capable of a visual dance of communication that is an extremely dense kind of visual signal, and they can even change the texture of their surface from smooth to rugose and folded. In species that have evolved in deep water, where very little light reaches, they have developed light-emitting phosphorescent organs, some of them with membranes like eyelids over them. These organs allow octopi to carry out their dance of light, self-improvement, color change, and surface texture even in the darkness of the ocean depths. This kind of biologically ingrained wiring into the potential of language is something that humans may be able to mimic and achieve using ''mushrooms'' as the inspiration for the directions given to a virtual reality development program. In other words, it may be possible to create kinds of visibility without syntax that would be the human equivalent of the dance of light, texture, and positioning that constitutes the grammar and syntax of squid and octopi visible language.

[@SeanA099]

This is like when Dr. Doofenshmirtz learned whale language just so he could insult them for stealing his girlfriend

[@graceslagle9240]

He didn't insult *them,* he isulted their mac and cheese recipe.

[@BaldorfBreakdowns]

@@graceslagle9240 I mean, insulting ones ability to make mac and cheese is sort of an insult to your direct person, no?

[@alyax2026]

Isn't it purely beautiful that a language can be represented in a sort of universe-like form, as if there were correlations between stars and the vehicle of information? Plus the idea that we might become able to understand animal languages, universally, is just mind blowing.

[@lfwalrus]

That is beautiful I also think there is a philosophy of linguistics assertion here The fact that language can be represented statistically seems to give credence to a derridian and object reference account of language

[@shaunhall6834]

This reminds me of the wonderful movie Arrival.

[@magnuslunzer2335]

Every living beeing communicates in some way, so it‘s a bit arrogant to say that only we have a language.

[@DAMfoxygrampa]

Wow, I literally googled this and learned about CETI 2 days ago and now you have a video on it!

[@jslevenson101]

In real-time, with a safe microphone transmitter, with their own KZbin channel to talk to people. Yes.

[@cyrilio]

I wonder if AI could also help communication between humans and cats. Billi from Billispeaks is a cat that can communicate with her human using buttons. It’s really amazing.

[@Yemborghini]

that cat only knows to push buttons for attention its unlikely cats are smart enough

[@planetphatness]

I'd rather not know what my cat is thinking, I have enough issue with my wife judging me 😂

[@vids595]

Sorry to tell you but Billispeaks is completely fabricated. Honestly is should be obvious to you.

[@vids595]

The cat only knows that stepping on the button can produce rewards. It has absolutely no idea what each button or word means.

[@thehairywoodsman5644]

Billi is amazing !

[@SmartK8]

Scientists: "So, what is your biggest fear?" Whales: "The sharp objects killing us from above!" Scientists: "Yeah,... about that..." *looking at each other worrying* Scientists: "...they're killing us... erm... as well, very unfortunate. The space must be full of them."

[@thoth7610]

What? Was that some kind of attempt at a joke? What’s with the gibberish?

[@antoniong1449]

Whales: What do you humans eat? Scientists: Grass. Grass and... nothing else 😇

[@imikewillrockyou]

They're saying, "hey I'm over here" and "I found a school of yummy fish" and "back off, that's my female"

[@dirk.no-whisky.4u]

Also, "dude, I raced a blue whale to the creature island and back" "What creature? " "Oh, you know, the hairless apes that ride on metal whales on the surface" "Ah, those tiny buggers. I also heard that they fly on metal birds" "Sheesh. Let's just hope they don't learn to breathe underwater"

[@TheSummoner]

In my opinion this is the greatest scientific-technological endeavor since the Space Race.

[@edbotikx]

Yeah talking to idiots about fish is so practical, definitely bigger than the internet

[@TheSummoner]

@@edbotikxI guess if one rephrases the Moon landing as "Yeeting ourselves on a giant barren rock in space" can make that sound dumb too.

[@GEG266]

This somewhat makes me wonder if there are other species (from outer space) that are aware of our communications and are trying to decipher it in order to communicate with us one day

[@momentary_]

They've probably already decoded it. They're just waiting for us to say something interesting before they bother with us.

[@jalucaru]

Thats what i thought when they described the process of monitoring and studying the whales... It's like, yep we're the aliens in UFOs for them

[@slarzyer]

the whales are saying be quiet those things on 2 legs are listening

[@hazyhalfmoon]

They don’t need to look too hard. Broadcasts of children’s shows like Sesame Street will give them a handbook.

[@refindoazhar1507]

@@momentary_ that's assuming that they even understand the encoding scheme of our broadcast, which one contain what type of information, or whether something is an actual information or just there as a check to ensure the integrity of the signal. In a way it would be even harder to do because even after breaking the signal encoding, the information itself could be encoded in thousands of different way depending of what type of information it is. Even for the same kind of information, knowing how PNG works doesn't immediately give you the ability to decode JPEG. Similarly, language are written in variety of writing system, each of which occupy its own space in unicode and is an encoding scheme itself. Even if they manage to go that far, they still need to understand the language itself, which is another layer of complexity as languages (and to certain extent the writing system) are fluid and doesn't have any hard rule or boundary, unlike the intentionally developed encoding scheme we use to store it in the computer and transmit it wirelessly. Standardized language do exist all over the world, but even it usually gives off a lot of leeway and people doesn't always follow it to a T even in the most formal of situation, making it even harder to understand which one is vocabulary, which one is grammar, which one is individual variation, which one is dialectal variation, which one is linguistical variation, and which one is just a mishmash of several languages spoken by someone who live in a multilingual society.

[@4dirt2racer0]

wow... just the fact that the babies dont speak anything intelligible or translatable until theyve learned is very interesting in itself for some reason

[@thomasnorton-crossman2160]

Can't recommened How to Speak Whale by Tom Mustill enough. Such a good read!

[@lordshaxx2165]

I instantly thought of Dory from Finding Nemo when I saw the title. Whale1: oh it's another human, I wonder what it's up to now Chat gpt: HELLOOOOOOOOOWWW WWHAAAAAALEEES HOOOOOWWW AAAARREEEEEE YOOOOOOOOUUUUU? Whale2: dude I told you those tiny brain humans are idiots

[@YAdler-hr7bs]

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

[@ssgssbeet4133]

Imagine if they have their own mathematics, their own histories and lores, their myths and beliefs of the universe outside their water realm, imagine what they could tell us about the secrets of the seas, amazing stuff, i just hope i live long enough to know their view of life

[@grimble4564]

I think it's very likely that they tell stories in order to teach each other but I really doubt they have mathematics. They might understand the concept of numbers up to like 4 but just classify everything beyond that as "a lot" because they just don't need higher math than that. Both chimps and human societies that haven't been forced into modernizing still operate like that and we got along just fine with that level of counting for hundreds of thousands of years.

[@tantainguyen4290]

Not likely. They are not *that* intelligent because in nature, such a complex language is likely not necessarily for survival. They might have words like foods, family, good, bad,… since that’s all that is needed in nature. Put a bunch of philosophers and a bunch of retarded soldiers who can only understand a few commands and the soldiers are still more likely to survive. Human intelligence is not necessary if there is no need for it

[@EayuProuxm]

This is the most excited I've been for a scientific development in the 21st century

[@projectceti]

💙

[@Engelhafen]

I would start with baby whales because that is where you would learn the rudiments of their communication.

[@Beyenne3000]

This is awesome. My family has done research on Sperm Whales in Dominica for the last 40 years

[@keep-ukraine-free]

Hopefully your family's research has been regularly published or shared with others especially scientists. Research must be shared with scientists. If it is not, it loses its value and may not be considered true research. If your family has been sharing your parametrised empirical data, thank you.

[@Thedastardlydan]

What about Coco the gorilla though? She knew sign language and gave humanity a good insight on how other primates communicate.

[@dontmatter4804]

​@aogasd Bunny is a prime example of confirmation bias, she does not have linguistic capabilities. The so called "study" being run on her is hosted by the company that makes the buttons, so they have a clear monetary incentive to make people believe that the buttons allow your dogs to talk. The truth is that dogs simply don't have linguistic communication because they don't need it, they express themselves through a complex series of body language and their brains have evolved to facilitate that specific form of communication

[@rekttt_7374]

Koko is fraud project. There is video on yt "why koko (probably) couldn't talk" Worth your watch i think.

[@huleyn135]

She didnt know shit. Koko is just a preconditoned learner with no true capacity for language. A fraud.

[@ifyouknowyouknow6964]

Why would they want to make people believe?

[@mariotheundying]

​@@dontmatter4804 so cats need it and would work better? Cats meow just to try to communicate with us, some even try to mimic words, all with trying to communicate, there's actually a channel with a cat that uses button, i think it's billy speaks, the cat doesn't even meow a lot and just uses the buttons

[@Iceflkn]

Having played violin, the 5 clicks per coda, looks like sheet music to me...as in, 5 beats per measure! Maybe each whale plays a different instrument in a concerto, so to speak? Or maybe they are singing different parts in an opera or taking turns so everyone gets the chance to be all the instruments, in a full orchestra?

[@wolfgangBuonarotti]

calling either SETI or CETI a 'moonshot' is both an accurate use of the term and a massive understatement.

[@LichtAnker.]

All animals and also all humans (more or less consciously) communicate (mainly) via telepathy. Whales are extremely good telepaths. Their click communication is just a very small aspect of their overall communication.

[@raykuzplays9605]

Honestly it's crazy that Wales could make these sounds be so loud, even before the rest of the world had that kind of technology. Wales truly is one of the cities of all time

[@lakrasia]

Wales is a country, not a city.

[@raykuzplays9605]

@@lakrasia thank you. I have also realized now that the entire video was about Whales and not Wales. A discovery which suddenly made the video a lot more understandable

[@gordalot]

😂

[@yvezf]

@@raykuzplays9605joke ruined yet you still stuck it out to the end. What a trooper🫡

[@raykuzplays9605]

@@yvezf things truly are tough out here. God speed friend

[@dabiskitt]

I bet Sperm Whales would say they’re pissed at us for how humans have treated the planet

[@quizdragonstudios8296]

They're probably screaming out and pleading with us to please stop throwing trash in their homes

[@DAMfoxygrampa]

Probably not

[@Known_as_The_Ghost]

I doubt they're even aware that humans are the ones doing it.

[@xFurashux]

Just because they may speak a language it doesn't mean they can grasp all our concepts.

[@cr0uchingtiger]

But it's not like a written language. It's going to be situation-specific. So the AI would need to pair sounds with actions.

[@ChickentNug]

This is so amazing. It's cool to think of how much this could affect our knowledge of the ocean one day. We might be able to even have them teach us about the deep ocean and what unknown creatures they've seen, depending on how complex their language is. Maybe we could even form standardized dialects for them to use with us so we could better understand them or something. Maybe they could be "bilingual" whales or something where they learn to speak in a way humans can understand and in the way they already do with each other or something as well. Seems kind of far-fetched, but from what I can tell they're extremely intelligent and just didn't evolve to have the same tools we have like hands. They're probably capable of a lot mentally and just physically can't document anything or create anything technologically. Maybe even one day we can figure out how to make some sort of neurolink thing with whale brains and let them control terrestrial robots or something and we could better communicate with them that way. Who knows lol

[@michaelshultz2540]

I really like the way you're thinking. It would be much simpler to teach them to speak to us if we teach them a language that both of us can use and understand. And maybe some kind of vr device that would allow the whale to interact with an avatar in a virtual human world and visa versa for us in theirs.

[@ChickentNug]

@@michaelshultz2540 haha yeah that would be amazing. It's kind of hard to imagine something like that actually happening, but can't say never. As far as we know they're the next most intelligent life in the universe so we might be able to interact in some way or another

[@Aurakitty7770]

great idea we need that

[@AldrianCG]

This is like Ted Chiang’s ”story of your life” but with whales instead of aliens. ☺️ Thank you!

[@realscience]

I need to read this! Arrival is one of my favorite movies of all time

[@ShaneFalko]

@@realsciencetruly fantastic book, as is Exhalation his 2nd collection of short stories. Check out The Lifecycle of Software Objects in that one 😁

[@AldrianCG]

@@realscience as you may know it is a short story, imho both movie and tale are complementary in a way. Right now i’m watching appletv+ show “extrapolations”, and there’s a scientific talking to a whale. Such a lovely dialogue… and then turned ugly. Anyway… ☺️👋🏼

[@AldrianCG]

@@ShaneFalko i loved both books. 🫡

[@rayjinflo]

This is one of the first questions I asked it! I'm not sure if I want people to directly influence them because of the possibility of deception and mass deception, but I like the idea of cooperating or exchanging concepts

[@XDarkGreyX]

AI is going to take my job away, but at least I can understand whale now.

[@GojiGuru]

This is very cool. Thanks for this mini-documentary! Just one small critique: the video is all about our efforts to answer the question “do whales have language?” Obviously it’ll be a while before we answer that question with certainty. So to refer to whales’ communication throughout the video as “language” is putting the cart before the horse. I know it’s a very convenient word to use, but because the video is specifically trying to answer the language question, calling whale coda “language” is presuming the answer and leads the audience to assume what the answer must inevitably be or what we already think it is. Small things like which word to use in any given sentence can go a long way in maintaining a neutral, non-biased coverage of the research. 😉

[@lisaschuster686]

Oh thank you for that adorable clickbait! “Got squid.” I needed a good laugh at something so sweet! 😊

[@nicton_T]

Chat gpt 3.5turbo , understood my language that only about 1.5m-3m people in the world speaks it . But it couldn’t answer me in the same language. The fact it understood me is mind blowing because there is no translation in the internet for it … but you can get some recordings only if you got access to social media dms ext social media stuff.

[@corvidcorax]

@Doctor Whowhotheowl Secret.

[@corvidcorax]

@Doctor Whowhotheowl I don't speak whatever gibberish OP does lmfao, I was just stating the obvious.

[@nicton_T]

@@corvidcorax language of turkmeneli , iraqi turkmen ( an ancient turkish language but with alot of grammar and accent) generally turks don’t quite understand how we speak . And there is no translations in the internet nether there are translation books .

[@corvidcorax]

@@nicton_T So you speak an ancient language? Okay, that makes sense. I thought you were talking about some quirky made up language, my bad lol.

[@nicton_T]

@@corvidcorax naah its language that only 1.5m people speak it 😅

[@stoichioman9944]

The first words we should learn or identify should be "Yes" or "No" since we could answer to their query in front of them. Would they know that we know what they are saying? This is quite interesting!!

[@yourguard4]

The observation of an animal asking a question would be great breakthrough.

[@antoniong1449]

Fun fact: in many old (human) languages there was no word for "yes". Latin was an example. They had to use expressions such as "you said it" or "that's how it is" to express an affirmation. Therefore, we can't assume they have a word meaning "yes". I think the first options should be expressions related to movement, such as "here", "there", "up", down", "quickly", etc.

[@ToniDelgadoAbellan]

"Yes" and "no" is a cultural construct as well

[@kyststudio-epicartadventure]

My dog prefers the adjective after the noun. But sometimes it’s just the fact that three words are spoken together in any order.

[@Vanessa_Simone_In_Toronto]

Considering the way that we've treated them, their brethren, and the oceans, I'm not sure that we'll be too happy about what they might have to say to us.

[@yjlom]

eh not much worse than we've treated some of ourselves

[@kittehgo]

I bet any reply would be demonetised and banned by you tube

[@XOPOIIIO]

But aren't they speaking many different languages like humans?

[@quizdragonstudios8296]

Yeah it seems that way, because they say in the video that the codas vary across regions. But since humans language clouds are all extremely similar then the whales are too I'm sure. The first thing is to crack the structure code

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

@@quizdragonstudios8296 Considering the likely answer is they speak monogrammar due to the complete superfluousness of anything more for what they need to communicate ☎, the *only* way to crack the code, in to know 💡 a monogrammar language yourself. The simplest possible language is a monogrammar ☝ language 📜. The grammar rule ➊ of a sentence existing is all the grammar needed. 😆 Directly translating a monogrammar ☝ language 📜 into the non-monogrammar ❌☝ languages 📜📜📜 humans 👥👥👥👥 have results in gibberish 😵‍💫. Thus, in order to translate a monogrammar ☝ language 📜, you need to know a monogrammar ☝ language 📜. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the point is, it is useful for communicating across intelligence classes 👤🐕🌲👽🤖📜, as it is modular, and easy to start learning. It can also be used as a reference for understanding common human languages. 😆 It is also impossible to reach the conclusion of monogrammar ☝ incrementally for you 👈. Due to how your common language(s) 📜 fundamentally work ⚙. This makes pre-planning the only method to detect 📡 monogrammar ☝ for you 👈. 🪧🔗 www.youtube.com/@mahapushpacyavana2033/community 📹🎶 kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6aYn4KeltF8o8U 📹🎶 kzbin.info/www/bejne/pImyg2eLhqZrlc0

[@kloassie]

No.

[@Masoch1st]

​@@kloassie wow great hypothesis

[@juhotuho10]

they probably are, we are just completely ignorant about it before the nation states, we used to have thousands of languages in a decently small area, the groups could probably understand other neighbouring groups but not much further than that we know that birds have different languages / accents because their calls are different depending on the area and they change all the time and extend this logic to whales and you will understand how impossible it would be to ever communicate with whales or animals

[@elseby]

The Coda's are the conversation. The tempo and amplitude are the conversations and the pattern is the identifier.They are basically affirming or putting a signature on everything they say to stand out in all the noise.

[@sachafriderich3063]

This project is so cool it absolutely fascninate and yet noone knows about it.

[@mffmoniz2948]

I think whales have their own odissey stories that they pass down orally from generation to generation. Wonder how long ago their Shakespeare invented his classics that are still sang to the little ones. And yeahh, they have their french, chinese, german, etc.

[@GregMoress]

"Hey whale" Yes AI "Your momma so fat, when she comes up to breath, the ocean sinks 6 inches"

[@movement2contact]

How many more years will English speakers refuse to call them cachalots..? 😫

[@quavowright6809]

Yes

[@ColeTanaka]

Sperm funni

[@leetimmermans]

We english men can say things how ever we want. English comes from the heart.

[@TheDylls]

English is more like a bunch of languages wearing a trenchcoat and pretending to be one language lol

[@movement2contact]

@@TheDylls Sure, but that name is just ridiculous to be used today...

[@NightRunner417]

Now here is a worthy use of AI. Can't wait to see if anything interesting comes of this and other animal language projects. 🙂

[@CoreyChambersLA]

You can upload video and audio to AI, and it will tell you which whale motions are linked to which whale vocal patterns.

[@FriendlyVienice]

Imagine what we could learn about the oceans... Mindblowing

[@idkshtt]

what could they do for us?

[@drac124]

Maybe learn not to blow up bombs in the ocean, that would be a good start.

[@TheKingBeyondEverything]

This video just got released the moment I finished a video about ChatGPT.

[@IgorNV]

ChatGPT is growing like wild fire

[@TheKingBeyondEverything]

@@IgorNV Yes buddy.

[@rh2097]

Well that's a wild coincidence! 😂