Scientists are trying to talk to animals using AI

Earth Species Project is a California non-profit with a lofty goal: use AI to translate animal languages into something humans can understand. Meaning, we may not be too far off from a reality where you can talk to your pets like Dug from Up.

• The project, which…..🐿️……was founded in 2017 with backing from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, recently secured $17 million in grants to continue its work on the AI model, called NatureLM.

How it works: NatureLM is the first audio-language model specifically designed to analyze animal sounds – essentially a “GPT-4 of animal communication” that’s trained on a mix of human language, animal noises, and environmental sounds.

When given an audio clip, NatureLM can already identify the species of animal speaking, as well as its approximate age and whether it’s indicating distress or play.

But…Becoming a real-life Dr. Dolittle is especially difficult compared to normal language translation, since humans have a limited understanding of how animals “talk” – and what they’re capable of communicating.

• For example: researchers just recently learned that many species have individual names for one another.
• And some, like prairie dogs, have a sophisticated vocabulary of nouns and adjectives to describe predators.

🌎🤖 Zoom out: The Earth Species Project is one of several efforts aimed at using AI to enhance humans’ relationship with nature. Project CETI last year used AI to decode a sperm whale “alphabet” – while Microsoft last month launched SPARROW, an AI system aimed at measuring and protecting Earth’s biodiversity in remote areas using solar-powered sensors and sound monitors.