AI for the best of Humanity
We keep seeing posts about how AI is going to doom us all, and sometimes, it gets a bit tiring. There are great hopes to have as well.
There are great hopes to have as well. Like every big technological shift, AI will be both a curse and a blessing. Some people want to stop it entirely—and I understand why—but the odds of that happening feel about as likely as giving up electricity in the 19th century. (Let’s be honest: who’s willing to drill a hole in their wall by hand today?). And electricity turned out to be pretty useful. AI will likely have that same kind of impact. So it’s worth looking at the parts that are exciting, too.
One area I’ve always been fascinated by is language. As a kid, I wondered whether dolphins or other animals were actually talking to each other. That curiosity is what drew me to the CETI project (link in 1st comment): a team using AI to find out whether sperm whales are communicating in ways we’ve never understood.
They’re collecting thousands of hours of whale clicks and using machine learning to spot patterns our ears simply can’t detect. And on sounds this alien to us, the machines are doing an incredible job. Some of the findings:
Repeatable “codas” that act like words or phrases
Dialect-like differences between clans, even oceans apart
Signs of social learning in how these vocalizations spread
That’s thrilling.
One of the CENTAI research papers (link in 1st comment) puts it this way: “We provide quantitative evidence suggesting social learning in sperm whales across sociocultural boundaries…” If they’re learning from each other, passing things down, using dialects—well, that’s culture. And if they “talk,” it means they have a social world of their own.
We get excited about reaching Mars thanks to Elon, but meanwhile, right here on Earth, we might be on the edge of discovering a planet far more alive—and far more complex—than we ever imagined. A new world, hidden in plain sight.
So what do you think?
Do animals have conversations? Will we ever know?
#AI #MachineLearning #NewBook #ProjectCETI #SpermWhales
