Translation of animal language with artificial intelligence

Researchers are developing an artificial intelligence system that they hope will soon allow humans to understand the many languages ​​that animals use to communicate with each other. Understanding what animals say can contribute to human knowledge of our world.

The artificial intelligence system is named NatureLM, and it even has the potential to identify conversations from species that the system has never encountered before.

NatureLM is trained on a combination of human language, environmental sounds and other data. The non-profit organization that created it recently received a $17 million grant to continue its work.

“We’re facing a biodiversity crisis,” said Katie Zakarian, CEO of the Earth Species Project, during a NatureLM demo at the recent Axios AI+ Summit in San Francisco.

He said: “The situation we are in today is caused by disconnection with nature. “We believe that artificial intelligence will lead us to resume this communication and help us decipher animal communication.”

Productive artificial intelligence has proven that its work does not translate; But one problem with animal language translation is that instead of moving between two known languages, we have a limited understanding of how animals and their language communicate.

The Earth Species project, from which NatureLM’s artificial intelligence system emerged, is trying to use artificial intelligence to help address the planet’s concerns.

Last week, Microsoft provided details of the SPARROW project; An artificial intelligence system designed to measure biodiversity in some of the most remote places on Earth.

Given that human progress in the fight against climate change is likely to fall short of the desired goals, many are looking to come up with alternative approaches to artificial intelligence.

While artificial intelligence shows promise in helping to better understand nature, the huge energy demand is straining those electrical systems and forcing tech companies to delay or change their plans to operate in a carbon-free way.