Tech Tonic presents: Can AI help us speak to animals? Part one

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While the Life and Art team takes a break for Thanksgiving, we’re sharing an episode of Tech Tonic, the FT’s technology podcast hosted by innovation editor John Thornhill. This is part one of a two-part series about whether AI can help us speak to animals. Search ‘Tech Tonic’ where you listen or look here for part two: https://on.ft.com/3sQh1DR

Here’s what it’s about: 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.

Free links:

– Google Translate for the zoo? How humans might talk to animals

– Karen Bakker, scientist and author, 1971-2023

– How generative AI really works

Credits: Sperm whale sounds from Project CETI; honeyhunter calls from Claire Spottiswoode 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.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, Life and Art listeners, this is Lila. We are still on break for Thanksgiving, so today
0:05.0	we're bringing you an episode of our sister show Tectonic. Tectonic is the Financial Times
0:10.3	podcast that investigates major technological shifts, and they recently did this really
0:15.3	incredible two-part series about how AI can help us speak with animals. We have part one for you here,
0:22.0	and you can find part two in the show notes.
0:24.7	If you like this episode,
0:25.8	search Tectonic wherever you listen.
0:27.8	They also have a cool new series now happening
0:29.7	about the rise of AI.
0:31.6	Please enjoy, and we will see you back this Friday
0:34.6	for our culture chat.
0:35.8	We'll be talking about the Crown. Listen.
0:38.3	Listen.
0:39.3	What can you hear?
0:45.3	What can you hear?
0:49.3	Breathe in and listen more closely.
0:53.3	If we listen closely to the sounds of the natural world, breathe in and listen more closely.
0:58.0	If we listen closely to the sounds of the natural world,
1:01.4	we can hear a lot more than we first realize.
1:04.7	But human hearing is limited,
1:09.4	and outside the range of our ears, the world can be a noisy place.
1:12.4	If we could expand our hearing to the lower ranges, to what's called the infrasound, we might hear iceberg splitting halfway across
	...

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