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Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

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Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#31

Post by User23 »

coldtea wrote: post #15
DarknessFalls wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To hunt a species to extinction is not logical. Edit: Because the topic is about communicating with Whales and my response was to a comment about hunting them, I thought it would be appropriate to reference something Spock said in Star Trek IV. Colloquially known as "The one with the whales".

I don't see any logical issue with that. Logic makes no moral judgements, and also logic doesn't care about the future, if it doesn't include the invididual. (Here logic is also a stand-in for "maximizing benefit"). If one/a group hunts whales to extintion and makes a huge profit (say, enough to retire), they would be logically sound (if morally bankrupt) to not care less if there are no whales left.

It's a shame that the explicit study of logic, ethics, and aesthetics isn't really part of the secondary school curriculum anymore. Everyone should be able to tell whether a problem falls in the domain of logic or ethics.

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#32

Post by Misdicorl »

God I cannot wait to talk to whales. Their oral histories must be incredible. People have fantasized about communicating with extraterrestrials for ages. I don't understand why we haven't invested significant resources in trying to communicate with the other animals on our own planet. What an incredibly weird and non translatable experience it will be to (finally?!) start this adventure with whales.

Tangent time. If you do a cursory search of how smart whales are, you'll get nonsense about how humans are much smarter because the size of the brain isn't relevant, its the ratio of the brain size to the body size. But somehow that argument doesn't apply to squirrels. Or to a 7 foot human vs. a 4.5 foot human. Whales probably aren't as smart as humans, but its due to the environmental pressures selecting for intelligence, not raw capability. Whales have the capability to far outstrip humans in intelligence (if you accept that neuron count and neuron connections are the raw inputs). Lets get some whale engineers working on the hard problems please.

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#33

Post by coldtea »

User23 wrote: post #31
coldtea wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any logical issue with that. Logic makes no moral judgements, and also logic doesn't care about the future, if it doesn't include the invididual. (Here logic is also a stand-in for "maximizing benefit"). If one/a group hunts whales to extintion and makes a huge profit (say, enough to retire), they would be logically sound (if morally bankrupt) to not care less if there are no whales left.

It's a shame that the explicit study of logic, ethics, and aesthetics isn't really part of the secondary school curriculum anymore. Everyone should be able to tell whether a problem falls in the domain of logic or ethics.

Yeah. And even "maximizing benefit/utility" is not logic (I went with that, since at best, it's what many mean by "makes logical sense").

Logic could as well be used perfectly well for minimizing benefit, it's just a tool for forming and evaluating syllogisms based on a set of axioms.

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#34

Post by cute_boi »

Shorel wrote: post #27
ceejayoz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should probably pick “whoops, our bad” as one of the early translation goals.

Then the whales will learn not to trust anything we say. Happened to indigenous people in the Americas.

But now these clever people will bring incentives etc to entice these creatures. Just depends on how much economic incentive these whales bring to the table.

Happens to many politicians by rich/powerful people across the world.

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#35

Post by psukhedelos »

I wonder if this type of research itself might at some point influence an animal’s language.

In this study, if the researchers were to consistently play a particular call when a school of fish were nearby I wonder if younger whales might learn the human produced call to mean a school of fish. Is it possible this research could instead lead to us presenting a species with our interpretation of their language which we would then have a much clearer understanding of?

Rather that just us understanding them, I wonder how this might help them understand us.

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#36

Post by ceejayoz »

Shorel wrote: post #27
ceejayoz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should probably pick “whoops, our bad” as one of the early translation goals.

Then the whales will learn not to trust anything we say. Happened to indigenous people in the Americas.

That seems like it should be lesson #1 when dealing with humans; that we lie, effortlessly.

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#38

Post by klipt »

Misdicorl wrote: post #32

God I cannot wait to talk to whales. Their oral histories must be incredible. People have fantasized about communicating with extraterrestrials for ages. I don't understand why we haven't invested significant resources in trying to communicate with the other animals on our own planet. What an incredibly weird and non translatable experience it will be to (finally?!) start this adventure with whales. Tangent time. If…

> Their oral histories must be incredible.

Everything was idyllic in the before times. Then the human ships arrived and ruined everything. Some of them killed us. Others ignored us but polluted the ocean with noise so we couldn't hear each other's whale songs anymore.

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#39

Post by riffraff »

booleandilemma wrote: post #3

The idea of finally talking to something we’ve been killing for resources for centuries is kinda weird.

we've done that with people for a very long time.

Even today, there are reports of african pygmies still being treated as slaves or hunted for both sport and cannibalism[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Pygmies#Enslavement,_c...

Re: Attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with AI, then talk back

#40

Post by Misdicorl »

klipt wrote: post #38
Misdicorl wrote: post #32

God I cannot wait to talk to whales. Their oral histories must be incredible. People have fantasized about communicating with extraterrestrials for ages. I don't understand why we haven't invested significant resources in trying to communicate with the other animals on our own planet. What an incredibly weird and non translatable experience it will be to (finally?!) start this adventure with whales. Tangent time. If…

> Their oral histories must be incredible. Everything was idyllic in the before times. Then the human ships arrived and ruined everything. Some of them killed us. Others ignored us but polluted the ocean with noise so we couldn't hear each other's whale songs anymore.

Maybe! But I find that an awfully self centered view. I imagine humans (boats?) will play a (perhaps significant) aspect in their vision of the world. But I'd be surprised if it was any bigger than e.g. malaria is for humans.
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