Could We Speak to Dolphins? A Promising LLM Makes That a Possibility

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

Dolphins have a broad vocabulary. They vocalize with whistles, clicks and “burst pulses.”This varied communication makes it challenging for scientists to decode dolphin speech. Artificial intelligence can help researchers process audio and find the slight patterns that human ears may not be able to identify. Reporter Melissa Hobson took a look at DolphinGemma, a large language model created by Google in collaboration with the Wild Dolphin Project and the Georgia Institute of Technology. The project seeks to unravel the clicks from the whistles and to understand what dolphins chat about under the waves. Recommended reading: Read our article about DolphinGemma: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-ai-let-us-chat-with-dolphins/ Watch our video about the project: https://www.tiktok.com/@scientificamerican/video/7499862659072871723 Keep up with Hobson’s reporting: http://www.melissahobson.co.uk/ Tell us what you think! Take our survey for the chance to win some SciAm swag! http://sciencequickly.com/survey E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was co-hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:15.9	For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman. There are a few animals that pretty much everyone likes.
1:31.0	Fluffy pandas, cute kittens, regal tigers.
1:35.5	Dolphins would probably make the list for most folks too.
1:38.8	They're intelligent, playful, and have those permanent goofy grins on their faces.
1:44.0	Watching them dart around in the water kind of makes you wonder,
1:46.6	what are those guys thinking?
1:48.4	It's a question many scientists have asked.
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