Scientists using artificial intelligence to decode the sounds sperm whales make believe their calls are so complex they resemble human language.
New research by a group of experts studying a clan of whales in the eastern Caribbean has found that they use a “Morse code” of clicks, with rhythm and tempo adding extra layers of complexity to convey meaning.
The calls are so information-rich that they are likely to help groups make group decisions and coordinate shared tasks, such as foraging and raising young, study scientists say long-term project called Project Ceti.
Dr David Gruber, founder and lead of the CETI project, said: “This discovery marks a profound moment in advancing our understanding of sperm whales.
File photo: iStock
“This opens the possibility that sperm whales have an incredibly complex and nuanced communication system – and inspires us to continue our journey of listening to whales.”
The team’s research has already shown that whales signal their clan identity with two evenly spaced clicks followed by three in rapid succession.
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But the new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, takes understanding whale language to a new level.
The researchers analyzed recordings from around 60 individuals from the Dominica Sperm Whale Project.
They found that in addition to the sequence of clicks, called a coda, the whales varied the tempo and rhythm depending on the context of their conversation.
They would also add an extra click at the end of some codas and gently vary the duration of repeated sequences.
Scientists have identified 143 regularly used combinations of all the variables that they say form a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet.”
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Researchers say they are still a long way from understanding whales.
But they add: “Although the communicative function of many codas remains an open question, our results show that the sperm whale’s communication system is, in principle, capable of representing a broad space of possible meanings, using mechanisms similar to those used by human sound. production and representation systems (e.g., speech, text, Morse code, and musical notation).”
Sperm whales have the largest brains of any known creature that has lived on the planet.
Females and young males hang out in highly social groups of up to 50 individuals, diving about a mile into the dark depths of the ocean to hunt the giant squid.
Scientists from the Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI) project are using robotic vessels to track groups and record their communications and behavior.
Artificial intelligence is then used to search for vocalizations related to what whales are doing.
Jacob Andreas, who is part of the CETI project’s machine learning team, said: “This paper shows that communication with sperm whales has some of the same structural features as the most sophisticated communication systems in the animal kingdom.
“We’re excited to start investigating how it’s used to convey meaning.”
Research from the CETI Project has shown that when whales are born, they babble, just like human babies, and take some time to learn to communicate.
Scientists believe that artificial intelligence will one day help them learn to communicate in the same way with whales. If successful, it would be the first time humans have spoken with another species.
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