Artificial intelligence decodes whale ‘alphabet’

On this episode of the Big Brains podcast, a scientist discusses how Project CETI is deciphering the Morse code-like “alphabet” of sperm whales.

If aliens landed on Earth tomorrow, how would we talk with them?

Well, we already have a kind of creature on this planet we could attempt to talk to first, and in the last few years a team of renowned scientists have been exploring the ocean studying sperm whales to get that conversation going.

David Gruber is a professor of biology and environmental science at CUNY and the founder of Project CETI, an interdisciplinary scientific initiative that is using the latest developments in AI to understand, and possibly communicate with, sperm whales.

The day when we break the cross-species communication barrier may be here sooner than you think. Just this year CETI managed to decode what could be called a sperm whale “alphabet.”

Here, Gruber explains CETI and their work on understanding whale sounds:

Read the transcript for this episode. Subscribe to Big Brains on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Source: University of Chicago