Researchers studying sperm whale communication say they've uncovered sophisticated structures similar to those found in human language.

Sperm whales communicate with each other using rhythmic sequences of clicks, called codas. It was previously thought that sperm whales had just 21 coda types. However, after studying almost 9,000 recordings, the Ceti researchers identified 156 distinct codas. They also noticed the basic building blocks of these codas which they describe as a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet” – much like phonemes, the units of sound in human language which combine to form words.

Pratyusha Sharma, a PhD student at MIT and lead author of the study, describes the “fine-grain changes” in vocalisations the AI identified. Each coda consists of between three and 40 rapid-fire clicks. The sperm whales were found to vary the overall speed, or the “tempo”, of the codas, as well as to speed up and slow down during the delivery of a coda, in other words, making it “rubato”. Sometimes they added an extra click at the end of a coda, akin, says Sharma, to “ornamentation” in music. These subtle variations, she says, suggest sperm whale vocalisations could carry a much richer amount of information than previously thought.

    • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      36·
      5 months ago

      I had a marine mammal prof in college who was fiercely dull unless you got him talking about whale hunting techniques. He would get particularly animated when describing how a Sperm Whale click carries enough force at depth that it make luminescent squids “light up like ‘eat me’ signs.”

      He also did a fun impression of a Grey Whale scooping mud off the sea floor. Which was mainly memorable because it was like watching Niles Crane pretend to be a backhoe.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        14·
        5 months ago

        He also did a fun impression of a Grey Whale scooping mud off the sea floor.

        Was he voiced by Ellen DeGeneres?

      • casmael@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        5 months ago

        Staring the rock as jacked squid cop who’s also a professional wrestler

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.eeEnglish
    78·
    5 months ago

    This is the kind of shit I want to see “AI” (machine learning) used for.

    We know that whales have a language. We know they can communicate complex ideas. We’ve never been able to figure it out.

    This could be the beginning of “first contact” with another intelligent species. We’re about to learn how much they fucking hate us. We’ll deserve every bit of what they have to say about us.

  • Arkouda@lemmy.caEnglish
    63·
    5 months ago

    I have a feeling if we ever get to speaking with whales they are going to have a lot of words for us.

  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    56·
    5 months ago

    I know it’s a general consumption news story, but I wish they’d have at least included a name or basic description of what the “AI” used was. “AI” is about as blandly unspecific as you can get even if it’s only being applied to algorithms that fall into that broad category, let alone how commonly it’s misused nowadays.

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      5 months ago

      It bothered me too so I clicked on the highlighted link in the article and in that there are these tidbits.

      The data collected has been processed using machine-learning algorithms to detect and classify clicks, with results due to be published in 2024.

      And

      More than 5,000 miles (8,000km) away, a group of artificial intelligence and natural language processing experts, cryptographers, linguists, marine biologists, robotic experts and underwater acousticians are also hoping to use AI – this time to decipher sperm whale conversation.

      Emphasis mine

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      5 months ago

      Yeah, it’s so commonly misused that I tend to just equate it to some sort of machine learning algorithm. Which is really just some complicated statistics and a database in a trenchcoat.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        7·
        5 months ago

        ML is in the category of AI, IMO. This was just scientific data analysis though, dressed up with the buzzword. It’s the right tool for the job and looks like good work, but not AI. Which is fine. I don’t get why people feel the need to call “doing something with data on a computer” AI.

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      5 months ago

      This almost certainly means using traditional machine learning algorithms against a massive corpus of whale vocalizations and descriptions.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        10·
        5 months ago

        It does! This isn’t anything that I’d call AI. It’s cool work, but it was just regular old scientific analysis and data visualization. Buzzwords strike again.

        • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOPEnglish
          5·
          5 months ago

          I’d be blaming the BBC and journalists/editors for that mess then.

          Glad you got the info you wanted tho. 👍

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            3·
            5 months ago

            Someone found a little AI in one of the code cells. Pretty low-level stuff, but it was used a little bit.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      5 months ago

      That’s the thing, dude, when you write software…it doesn’t have a name. They probably started with a framework like tensor flow and then stacked audio analysis ml modules on top figuratively, but this was probably mostly written in house it’s not a commercial product.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        5 months ago

        I’m in “artificial intelligence” and write software. I’m not looking for a product name. If they developed an entirely new technique that’d also be cool to mention, but they probably built on existing techniques and were at least working in some broad form of AI.

        Edit: After looking at the paper, it’s the “misused” category. They were doing regular scientific data analysis.

        • Match!!@pawb.socialEnglish
          2·
          5 months ago

          The github shows them doing some k nearest neighbors and kernel estimation as part of their understanding of the coda (I think? I don’t know anything about whales)

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            2·
            5 months ago

            The KMeans is actually an unused import, but yeah, I see the kernel estimation. They also use a gaussian mixture in one of the lower cells. So a little AI.

  • AmidFuror@fedia.io
    13·
    5 months ago

    There’s a later report where they’ve deciphered one of the oft repeated sperm whale sentences: “So long, but why no fish?”

    • Sabin10@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      5 months ago

      When I was a child in the late 80s, I saw the occasional news story about researchers trying to crack the code in whale communication. Crazy that we might get there.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Now, from elephants to dogs, modern technology is helping researchers to sift through enormous datasets, and uncover previously unknown diversity and complexity in animal communication.

    They also noticed the basic building blocks of these codas which they describe as a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet” – much like phonemes, the units of sound in human language which combine to form words.

    Pratyusha Sharma, a PhD student at MIT and lead author of the study, describes the “fine-grain changes” in vocalisations the AI identified.

    The existence of a combinatorial coding system, write the report authors, is a prerequisite for “duality of patterning” – a linguistic phenomenon thought to be unique to human language – in which meaningless elements combine to form meaningful words.

    Categorised as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), sperm whales are still recovering from commercial hunting by humans in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

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