Can we learn to talk to sperm whales? | David Gruber

Can we learn to talk to sperm whales? | David Gruber | TED

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3 жыл бұрын

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Animals are communicating -- but what are they saying? And can we talk back? Marine biologist David Gruber introduces Project CETI: a team of scientists, linguists and AI specialists hoping to decode sperm whale language. Using noninvasive robots and a machine-learning algorithm to collect and analyze millions of sperm whale vocalizations known as coda, the team aims to demystify the communication structures and dialects of these majestic creatures -- and possibly even crack the interspecies communication code. (This ambitious plan is a part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)
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Пікірлер: 248

@acmelka 3 жыл бұрын

We aught to get a very big apology together if we plan on communicating with them.

@XochiAdame 3 жыл бұрын

A lesson in humility and repentance to be sure. Hopefully this will help us undo the pervasive damage we've caused.

@Chamelionroses 3 жыл бұрын

@@XochiAdame causing as well as a species.

@emilin4031 3 жыл бұрын

U mean *to give a*?

@Annibals 3 жыл бұрын

Infants trapped and afraid.. waiting to be saved. Hope you make it in time Watch "the most important speech you will ever hear (Gary Yurovsky)" on KZfaq

@NPClownumber81googolplex 3 жыл бұрын

Whale reparations...

@Ambar42 3 жыл бұрын

Not kidding, learning to understand the language of sperm whales is one of the researches I'm excited for the most in today's science. Great project!

@ShinyRedGrapple 3 жыл бұрын

Humans: Hello Mr. Sperm Whale, how are you? Whale: Well for one thing, of all the names you could have gave us, you chose literally the grossest one

@stargel6867 3 жыл бұрын

Cause is funny, its Genius

@stargel6867 3 жыл бұрын

PERFECTA

@kavitagohil6391 3 жыл бұрын

😂😂

@josecortez6341 3 жыл бұрын

ahahahahahah !!

@sqlb3rn 3 жыл бұрын

yea well you should hear what they call us.

@davidpopolizio3781 3 жыл бұрын

The whale speaks the language of my dad in a leather chair apparently

@MrJO420 3 жыл бұрын

LMAO 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂

@jimwalker5412 3 жыл бұрын

Now that Sir made me laugh out loud.

@GlamGoreChaosQueen 3 жыл бұрын

LOL or my 6 year old after Mexican food lol

@RM-vw3ov 3 жыл бұрын

Amazing. And so needed. I’m embarrassed how our species has treated our fellow species. Especially the ones that obviously have an intelligence that gives them awareness that may exceed our own in many ways. Can you imagine how much faster we’d learn about the oceans if we asked a sperm whale family?

@razmataz2823 11 ай бұрын

The question isnt do they think, rather can they suffer.

@chrissego4370 Ай бұрын

@@razmataz2823Of course they can suffer. All mammals and higher animals are capable of suffering and pain.

@billyuno 3 жыл бұрын

There are a number of reasons why this is important, but one of the reasons is that someday, in the distant future we may find intelligent life, but may not recognize it as such because it doesn't look like us. We will need some way to communicate with them, or at least attempt to communicate if we want to avoid conflict or exploitation.

@hartmutwrith3134 Жыл бұрын

I work as a voluntaire in a cat shelter here in the south of Germany since more than 4 years. Additionally i allways had cats within the family. So i learned their language (verbal and facial) over the years and i am able to communicate a bit with them. The greatest experiance in my 68 years of life. And i am totally amazed about whales.

@blurglide 3 жыл бұрын

This would be amazing. We're out there trying to search for aliens, but we can't even communicate with whales

@HieuNguyen-mb4lf 3 жыл бұрын

Well, the reason why we’re trying to search for aliens is because we’re assuming that they are more advanced than us and so they would be doing most of the work. We can’t rely on whales to communicate with us, on the other hand.

@NPClownumber81googolplex 3 жыл бұрын

Aliens would be smarter then us tho and probably know how 😂

@johnralph2536 2 жыл бұрын

@@NPClownumber81googolplex or they would be so much smarter than us they wouldn’t bother communicating with us and would treat us as animals

@markazulislam5143 Жыл бұрын

If you can crack this you deserve a noble prize

@andreidezsi4003 3 жыл бұрын

Hopefully progress is quick, and real impacts occur in protection, given the recent resumption of whaling...

@lolpopshuffle9614 3 жыл бұрын

we're humans and people are intelligent yet arrogant, hopefully this study can bring our understanding to whale specifically and how not to disturb them, communication can be something some people use for itself.

@Beardyvlogger 3 жыл бұрын

Omg this would be so awesome. Talking to any animal in some way would be a dream. Incredible what we are doing with AI

@antoniousai1989 3 жыл бұрын

It's not gonna happen with any animal. You can't talk to animals that do not have languages that have at least basic concepts like the idea of being an individual, etc etc. Only a couple of animals will ever be able to understand things that for us are granted and necessary in communication. We're never gonna talk to a dog or a cat. Maybe basic communication with cetacea and some apes.

@Beardyvlogger 3 жыл бұрын

@@antoniousai1989 that's why I said "in some way"

@antoniousai1989 3 жыл бұрын

@@Beardyvlogger You said "Any animal" My point is that not only I'd not have any meaning in doing it for dogs or horses, but it would not be possible at all

@xanderjones2747 2 жыл бұрын

This is amazing work, excited to see it progress.

@bianka94825 3 жыл бұрын

Im sending my apologies on behalf of all human activities that keep ruining their habitat. Im personally terrified of big bodies of water but please tell the whales we love them❤

@filmalarmxxl 3 жыл бұрын

Yes! This research is needed, urgent! What a humble lesson, this speech!

@koushikmaji7998 2 жыл бұрын

Yeah! This talk provided me with enough motivation to study for my Statistics and Signal processing paper this semester.

@micliang3000 Жыл бұрын

Fantastic project, I wish you achieve what you dream of and beyond!

@ramandeepnijjar8281 3 жыл бұрын

So fascinating! Thank you! As a current student hoping to study marine biology in university in the future

@drakarra Жыл бұрын

Thank you so, so, *so* much for your research. With the critical states our oceans are in, this is exactly the kind of research the world needs. I will definitely be following your research. You guys are phenomenal. Thank you.

@geraldmerkowitz4360 3 жыл бұрын

Holy cow imagine they tell us about their whale memes!

@QW3RTYUU 2 жыл бұрын

Remember when the humans wanted to genocide us??? xDDDDD

@streetballplayer100 Жыл бұрын

So exciting!!!

@ubtpixielox 3 жыл бұрын

Finally! Someone’s doing it!

@markstruble5143 3 жыл бұрын

Very cool!

@dmoney244 3 жыл бұрын

It sounded like someone was slowly opening a door

@Kabup2 3 жыл бұрын

lol

@kevin71127 2 жыл бұрын

This is easily more interesting than space travel and where I think we should be focusing our scientific efforts.

@kevinwells4986 3 жыл бұрын

I had something to say. Then I got all caught up in this. Now I realize I need to think a long while, if I can do that.

@86davy 2 жыл бұрын

Don’t they do that clicking to gauge your frequency ? So they can echo location - visualize you?

@alexchaput5146 Жыл бұрын

Four more years till the research is complete baby. I am super excited

@aeriumfour6096 3 жыл бұрын

"y u so big?"

@AlbertKimMusic Жыл бұрын

Project CETI is going faster than ever now with the recent advancements in AI

@negimemorandum3941 Жыл бұрын

Learning languages of animal is a whole new potential subject this will produce a new big living society that will include different animal species. One can imagine what the world would be.

@sdas683 3 жыл бұрын

I think they should gather the top 20 athletic teams throughout the world and have them devise codes for what the whales might want to be saying, then use that as input data for the model and see if anything hits. Like, it would be cool to know the status of your farthest teammates left foot by emitting just a specially pitched squeak, if that was valuable information to you at the time.

@toxichammertoe8696 Жыл бұрын

I would like to have an update on this

@vas4739 3 жыл бұрын

An unlikely untapped resource could be those in our human societies called savants. They can detect patterns and nuances in patterns and obtain some plausible meanings.

@corgis7083 3 жыл бұрын

Yes

@FM_GOBi 3 жыл бұрын

James Nestor did a TED talk in 2017 saying that the project would be done in 2 years. And now you say in 2021 that the project will be done in 5 years.

@Doova02 12 күн бұрын

This is my professor 😮

@kanrup5199 11 ай бұрын

its unlikely you'd get a good reply if you try to say "hello, how are you feeling today?". I don't think other creatures communicate in exactly the same way as us, they don't live in human world and human lifestyle or human nature. but they might have a signal for "greetings", and you might get a "greetings!" back. They might have things that evaluate to things like "I am over here", "come here", "go", "help", "up", "down", "come together", "food", "safe", "danger", "run away" etc. But it's also a question of how would the young learn those signals? E.g- birds have various signals, but there are no bird schools. but I don't know how complex their communication ideas get. It might depend on the world and lifestyle they live in.

@momomom81 3 жыл бұрын

Animal Linguistics is so cool.

@Kabup2 3 жыл бұрын

He's not doing Linguistics, he'll use brute force hacking methods.

@Chamelionroses 3 жыл бұрын

David Attenborough could explain how much is unknown and such on animal communication. Humans ...

@Chamelionroses 3 жыл бұрын

@@Kabup2 brute force?

@Kabup2 3 жыл бұрын

@@Chamelionroses That's how AI can learn patterns, you use millions of data until a pattern appears. It's just random try and try again, until you nailed. Hackers use this to uncover passwords, they have lists with millions of codes, until one fits. Humans can't do that, computers can.

@emilin4031 3 жыл бұрын

@@Kabup2 thx for that info👍

@dr4t 3 жыл бұрын

Whale: *just hodl*

@michellemarieperez6574 3 жыл бұрын

Interesting.

@Aviatorammar 3 жыл бұрын

Good

@JohnSmith-kj2od 3 жыл бұрын

Don't forget to use protection

@Diffbrookes 3 жыл бұрын

Just ask Dory

@Kabup2 3 жыл бұрын

Waste of time... she don't remember anything...

@Diffbrookes 3 жыл бұрын

@@Kabup2 valid point

@AdityaMehendale 3 жыл бұрын

Now, more than ever, a "Do No Evil" commandment would be appropriate.

@arlequin241 Жыл бұрын

I'm all for saving whales and protecting them, but all I can think about is Will Ferrell impersonating this guy on a SNL skit, glasses and all!

@maksimatic 3 жыл бұрын

Sophisticated? Probably not. Incredible? Absolutely.

@SailajaSadineniNS 3 жыл бұрын

Interesting

@daindian7428 2 жыл бұрын

Just think if we establish communications and all they have to say is “So long and thanks for all the fish”.

@keenanfetterly823 3 жыл бұрын

Any animal we talk to will eventually end up hating us unless we feed it only specific information about humans.

@TheThomasites 3 жыл бұрын

5:10 other animals perceive and communicate temporally. Bees and chimpanzees for a quick example.

@cringelord9796 2 жыл бұрын

NOICE

@Annibals 3 жыл бұрын

Damn man damn damn damn

@K2K721 3 жыл бұрын

❤

@MattyP62618 3 жыл бұрын

I suspect they'll be taking about current events

@pushing2throttles 3 жыл бұрын

Without a coda "Rosetta Stone" how will you know you're right on your assumptions about what the data reveals? Furthermore, it's known that different pods of cetacean's have their own local dialects and my question is how will you account for that?

@GlamGoreChaosQueen 3 жыл бұрын

Those are really good questions.

@Eunostos 3 жыл бұрын

Watch videos before commenting, ffs. Both covered in content.

@aninternetuser4306 Жыл бұрын

It will take thousands, millions of data sets of vocalizations from each whale group, crossed against each other to get even a basic understanding.

@thehillbillygamer2183 Жыл бұрын

My Chihuahuas very interested in the sounds of the mighty sperm whale so is his son that's a half Chihuahua

@-whackd 3 жыл бұрын

My butt has spoken a similar language, sometimes after burritos

@faithbetinis4129 3 жыл бұрын

I want to know what they're singing about!

@articulateit-andgetwhatyouwant 3 жыл бұрын

Very cool! I just hope we humans use what we learn for the good

@haleymartin5798 2 жыл бұрын

Said Einstien after E=MC²... Sad but true.

@XsweetstarliteX 3 жыл бұрын

not if we keep fucking up their echo location and causing internal brain bleeding.

@michaelggriffiths Жыл бұрын

Codas may transmit _thoughts_ through water. The assumption seems to be that there must be a thought process that is broken down into verbalised sounds which are then decoded and _part_ of the though understood. However, when I indicate that I'm hungry; by saying "I'm a bit Peckish", only a tiny part of my thought process has been transferred to the recipients. I might well be thinking about my favourite dish, when I last had it, what it tasted like, how easy would it be to make it, etc etc. The recipient might think. "what, hungry again!" - they understand that I've said that I'm hungry, that's all really. Our communication is very linear, focused, précis and limited. What if whales _think,_ and then send their *entire thought processes* to each other? They probably don't have _names_ as we understand names, but an *address* and probably coordinates. They probably also employ some form of natural encryption. *They may actually be 'reading' other whales minds..* Machine learning will undoubtedly fail as long as it's based on learning a 'language'. The real breakthroughs will come from musicians. Forget *language,* think; *thoughts.*

@aninternetuser4306 Жыл бұрын

We are definitely not ready to translate or understand something of that complexity.

@Niamhmusicmusic 9 ай бұрын

It makes me so happy, i just hope nothing goes wrong or unethical

@YawnGod 3 жыл бұрын

6 seconds no views?! The entropy is low at the moment.

@morose6293 3 жыл бұрын

Maybe we should start by changing their name.

@Zahlenteufel1 3 жыл бұрын

if it's possible, it is inevitable

@murraymaccuish8073 11 ай бұрын

the are not sending words as we do/they are sending pictures

@mr_morning_star9793 3 жыл бұрын

First we have to help animals for their survival if they survive then we talk to them But we humans do global warming by which sea's temperature is increasing

@VinegarPotato 3 жыл бұрын

Once this works we should just ask for the whales consent for global warming

@GertvandenBerg 3 жыл бұрын

How is this not "Project Babel fish"?!

@hold.on9 3 жыл бұрын

Hi mr.Whale I'm your fans

@brandonwilson5636 3 жыл бұрын

Whale: So, Mankind, clean up your trash.

@StaleDoritoCrumb 3 жыл бұрын

I feel like he is looking to the side very often

@Shadow-sq5nn 3 жыл бұрын

Interesting, but what does everyone think we can learn? I’m curious. What would or could this change?

@Kabup2 3 жыл бұрын

We did talk with chimps, it didn't change too much.

@Chamelionroses 3 жыл бұрын

Humans talk to humans...things do not change much as a behavior in species generally.

@Carlos-fn2hl Жыл бұрын

Hopefully lower the human ego and believe that we're above everyone else

@alihashemi4761 3 жыл бұрын

👏

@SuperTruevision 3 жыл бұрын

Better off learning to talk to each other....

@AidaNurusSuroyya 3 жыл бұрын

Amazingg thankyou🤍

@dawidwolnik628 3 жыл бұрын

but can it play crisis?

@googleyoutubechannel8554 Жыл бұрын

I wish you luck, but think the Project CETI approach has very little chance of working based on the diagram of what CETI thinks it's goals are, skeptical this label approach makes sense, and even if it does skeptical transformer networks are going to do anything except be misleading. eg. Try this for a fun exercise, record tupac lyrics in Silbo Gomero, transmit it over a 56k modem, record the sound that modem makes during transmission. Give this audio file to your head data scientist and ask them to use any enc/dec network technique they want to make sense of it, should be easy, its human speech in bog standard grammar....

@sebastianm.8576 2 жыл бұрын

This it’s amazing! But in the meantime we should protect them, because some countries allow companies to keep hunting them 🧐

@manus5423 3 жыл бұрын

I read Can we learn to take sperm from whales LOL

@cjnnamoroll 3 жыл бұрын

Can you?

@TattooTourism 3 жыл бұрын

we live in a post-impossible era

@ryanjavierortega8513 10 ай бұрын

Maybe they can figure out a way to get my Dad to talk to me

@emilin4031 3 жыл бұрын

They would be pissed to know what we call them

@elliotblair171 3 жыл бұрын

pffft John Lilly style (LSD) would probably work better than AI and robots in the ocean. Also wouldnt they be uncomfortable with robots in the ocean. Like they can echolocate the innards, blast them and break them.

@Odyss2023 Жыл бұрын

Maybe if we learn to communicate with whales and dolphins, we can hire them to help us like keeping sharks off from beaches.

@alephii 3 жыл бұрын

I talk to my own sperms!

@garygraham2513 3 жыл бұрын

We can tell them to "get out of Dodge" when the whale boats show up! HURRY! FLEE! They have earned at least that much!

@ZacharyRodriguezVlogs 3 жыл бұрын

I want to use this technology to communicate with orcas.

@lewisjohnson2579 3 жыл бұрын

You showed that wasn't gas

@xXIDanIZz 3 жыл бұрын

Pog

@paris7904 3 жыл бұрын

Pog

@Kabup2 3 жыл бұрын

Pog

@gwen8290 3 жыл бұрын

Pog

@handzofgod 3 жыл бұрын

Pog

@Victor_Andrei 3 жыл бұрын

"The most sophisticated method of communication that has ever existed" - I somehow seriously doubt that.

@isaacsandifer997 2 жыл бұрын

Well if you quote it right he said “possibly”

@Pythonzzz Жыл бұрын

Why do you doubt it? If it can be used to transmit messages across the planet, echolocate, and possibly transmit an idea of images or emotion, isn’t that pretty sophisticated?

@Victor_Andrei Жыл бұрын

I feel like the smart phone in my hand, coupled with the 5g tower I'm currently using to leave this comment comfortably out-sophisticates it. Not to mention the English language or the entirety of the internet and computer equipment needed for this communication to even take place. It could have been phrased better, is what I'm trying to say.

@Gizmonips 2 жыл бұрын

I’m telling them it was the Japanese, Icelanders, and northern Tribes.

@Luc-px7nf 3 жыл бұрын

and then become aquaman

@machimuse7526 Жыл бұрын

The day we can communicate with cetaceans, I hope they will be able to forgive humans for what we did to them, and are still doing to them (looking at you Japan, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands).

@shotz2thehead_og765 10 ай бұрын

He said they are going to try this on primates and other animals. I wonder why they are trying to speak to sperm whales first with them being so hard to record

@Dwurogowy 3 жыл бұрын

That's odd, i've already talked with your mother, ted.

@lizc6393 Жыл бұрын

I happen to think they're likely more intelligent than we are.

@briansherling5515 10 ай бұрын

We have been communicating with the apes. KOKO Use sign language to communicate sentences and intention and emotion.

@stephenv6054 3 жыл бұрын

Not starting with Dogs first?

@antoniousai1989 3 жыл бұрын

Dogs are not intelligent enough to assume they have a complex language to apply machine-learning on.

@Overonator 3 жыл бұрын

I'm not buying it that you can use machine learning will magically decode sperm whale language. This isn't like trying to decode a human language. You know that humans share common experiences so describing those experiences in figuring out what those words mean is easy. We aren't sperm whales, we don't have the same experiences so to me this is quite unbelievable and bordering on pseudoscience.