Google uses artificial intelligence to decode the secret language of dolphins

Now using Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) To try to understand how they communicate with each other – in the hope that one day humans can use technology to chat with friendly finned mammals.

Google collaborated with researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP), a Florida based A non-profit that has been studying and recording dolphin sounds for 40 years, to build a new artificial intelligence model called DolphinGemma.

Google is using artificial intelligence (AI) to try to understand how dolphins communicate with each other – in the hope that one day humans can use the technology to chat with them. (Istock)

‘Amazing pod’ containing more than 1,500 dolphins off California coast captured on drone video

For decades, WDP has linked sound types to behavioral contexts. For example, signature whistles were used by mothers and calves to reunite them, while pulse beats are often observed during dolphin fights, according to the researchers. Google blog On the project.

Clicking “buzzes” are often used during courtship or chasing sharks.

Now, using the vast data collected by WDP, Google has built DolphinGemma, based on Google’s lightweight, open AI model, known as Gemma.

DolphinGemma is trained to analyze an extensive library of recordings to discover patterns, structures and even potential “meanings” behind dolphin communications or sounds.

Over time, DolphinGemma will attempt to organize dolphin sounds into categories – almost like words, sentences or expressions in human language.

Google has teamed up with researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP), a Florida-based nonprofit that has been studying and recording dolphin sounds for 40 years, to build the new AI model called DolphinGemma.

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“By identifying recurring sound patterns and reliable clusters and sequences, the model can help researchers discover hidden structures and potential meanings within dolphins’ natural communication – a task that previously required enormous human effort.” On Google Read about the project.

“Eventually, these patterns, augmented by artificial sounds created by researchers to indicate things dolphins like to play with, may create a shared vocabulary with dolphins for interactive communication.”

DolphinGemma uses Google’s Pixel phone technology, specifically the audio recording technology used in Pixel devices, to create clean, high-quality audio recordings of dolphin sounds.

Pixel phone technology can separate dolphin clicks and whistles from background noise like waves, boat engines, or underwater static electricity. This clean sound is crucial for AI models like DolphinGemma, because messy and noisy data may confuse the AI, the researchers said.

A zookeeper wearing a protective mask looks inside a dolphin’s mouth at the “Planete Sauvage” zoo in Saint-Pere-en-Ritz, outside Nantes, on May 6, 2020. Dolphins are one of the smartest animals on Earth and have been revered for thousands of years for their intelligence, emotions and social interaction with humans. (Loic Finance/AFP via Getty Images)

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Google says it plans to launch DolphinGemma as an open model this summer, allowing researchers around the world to use and adapt it.

Although it was trained on Atlantic spotted dolphins, the model could also help study other species such as bottlenose or spinner dolphins with some fine-tuning, the researchers said.

“By providing tools like DolphinGemma, we hope to give researchers around the world the tools to mine their own acoustic datasets, accelerating the search for patterns and collectively deepening our understanding of these intelligent marine mammals,” the blog post said.