Can AI help us speak to animals? Part one
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A hardware revolution in recording devices and a software revolution in artificial intelligence is enabling researchers to listen in to all kinds of conversations outside the human hearing range, a field known as bioacoustics. Some scientists now believe these developments will also allow us to ‘translate’ animal sounds into human language. In a new season of Tech Tonic, FT innovation editor John Thornhill and series producer Persis Love ask whether we’re moving closer to being able to ‘speak whale’ or even to chat with bats.
Presented by John Thornhill, produced by Persis Love, sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s head of audio.
Free links:
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Credits: Sperm whale sounds from Project CETI; honeyhunter calls from Claire Spottiswoode
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The FT News Briefing is supported by Equinole, the UK's energy partner. |
| 0:06.3 | Learn more at equinole.co.uk |
| 0:14.4 | Listen. |
| 0:17.8 | What can you hear? |
| 0:21.3 | Breathe in and listen more closely. |
| 0:25.9 | If we listen closely to the sounds of the natural world, |
| 0:29.7 | we can hear a lot more than we first realize. |
| 0:34.0 | But human hearing is limited, and outside the range of our ears, |
| 0:38.4 | the world can be a noisy place. |
| 0:41.3 | If we could expand our hearing to the lower ranges, |
| 0:44.2 | to what's called the infrared sound, |
| 0:46.3 | we might hear iceberg splitting halfway across the world. |
| 0:51.1 | Even the rhythmic pulsing of the Earth's crust |
| 0:54.0 | as waves crash across its continental shelves. |
| 0:57.7 | And here's something else you'd pick up below the human hearing range. |
| 1:02.0 | The sound of species communicating. |
| 1:05.4 | Elephants, tigers, and peacocks interacting in the infrared sound. |
| 1:10.4 | Then in the ultrasound, there's chatter on coral reefs. |
| 1:14.7 | Corn plants are clicking. |
| 1:17.3 | And mice and beetles are emitting sound waves at frequencies too high for the human ear. |
| 1:23.7 | Well as microphones have got better, |
| 1:25.8 | this world of sound is opening up to us. |
... |
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