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DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

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Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#51

Post by beernet »

lukev wrote: post #46

Tangential, but this brings up a really interesting question for me. LLMs are multi-lingual without really trying assuming the languages in question are sufficiently well-represented in their training corpus. I presume their ability to translate comes from the fact that there are lots of human-translated passages in their corpus; the same work in multiple languages, which lets them figure out the necessary mappings b…

My hunch is it would work somewhat, but poorly.

Languages encode similar human experiences, so their conceptual spaces probably have natural alignments even without translation examples. Words for common objects or emotions might cluster similarly.

But without seeing actual translations, a model would miss nuances, idioms, and how languages carve up meaning differently. It might grasp that "dog" and "perro" relate to similar concepts without knowing they're direct translations.

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#52

Post by bjt »

Imnimo wrote: post #41

This sounds very cool at a conceptual level, but the article left me in the dark about what they're actually doing with DolphinGemma. The closest to an answer is: >By identifying recurring sound patterns, clusters and reliable sequences, the model can help researchers uncover hidden structures and potential meanings within the dolphins' natural communication — a task previously requiring immense human effort. But thi…

As far as I can tell, it hasn't actually done anything yet.

The article reads like the press releases you see from academic departments, where an earth shattering breakthrough is juuuuust around the corner. In every single department, of every single university.

It's more PR fluff than substance.

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#53

Post by zoogeny »

Not directly related, but one of those stories that is so bizarre you almost can't believe it isn't made up.

There was a NASA funded attempt to communicate with Dolphins. This eccentric scientist created a house that was half water (a series of connected pools) and half dry spaces. A woman named Margaret Howe Lovatt lived full-time with the Dolphins attempting to learn a shared language between them.

Things went completely off the rails in many, many ways. The lead scientist became obsessed with LSD and built an isolation chamber above the house. This was like the sensory deprivation tanks you get now (often called float tanks). He would take LSD and place himself in the tank and believed he was psychically communicating with the Dolphins.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/08/the-dolp...

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#54

Post by Teever »

srean wrote: post #13
charcircuit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To understand their language we need shared experiences, shared emotions, common internal worlds Why? With modern AI there exists unsupervised learning for translation where you don't have to explicitly make translation pairs between the 2 languages. It seems possible to eventually create a way to translate without having to have a teaching process for individual words like you describe.

Teach the meaning and understanding of 'chrome red' to a chilf blind from birth.

How do we explain things like plasma and UV to anyone?

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#55

Post by doublerabbit »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #45
ZeroCool2u wrote: post #12

Wow, there's a lot of cynicism in this thread, even for HN. Regardless of whether or not it works perfectly, surely we can all relate to the childhood desire to 'speak' to animals at one point or another? You can call it a waste of resources or someones desperate attempt at keeping their job if you want, but these are marine biologists. I imagine cross species communication would be a major achievement and seems like…

I'm as or more cynical than the next guy - but it seems to me that being able to communicate with animals has high utility for humans. Partly from an emotional or companionship perspective as we've been doing with dogs for a long time, but maybe even on purely utilitarian grounds. If we want to know something about what's going on in the ocean, or high on a mountain or in the sky or whatever - what if we can just ask…

I am all for the Disney utopian fantasy of us living with animals.

However if universal communication was to be made. Don't you think that animals are going to be pretty pissed to discover what we have done with their kingdom?

"Hi Mr Dolphin, how's the sea today?" "Wet and a plastic bottle cap got lodged in my blowhole last night..."

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#57

Post by lesuorac »

doublerabbit wrote: post #55
Nifty3929 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm as or more cynical than the next guy - but it seems to me that being able to communicate with animals has high utility for humans. Partly from an emotional or companionship perspective as we've been doing with dogs for a long time, but maybe even on purely utilitarian grounds. If we want to know something about what's going on in the ocean, or high on a mountain or in the sky or whatever - what if we can just ask…

I am all for the Disney utopian fantasy of us living with animals. However if universal communication was to be made. Don't you think that animals are going to be pretty pissed to discover what we have done with their kingdom? "Hi Mr Dolphin, how's the sea today?" "Wet and a plastic bottle cap got lodged in my blowhole last night..."

I suspect Dolphins can tell people apart and will recognize you as not the guy that threw the bottle cap akin to all those stories about crows.

Certainly will be interesting to see how much we can bribe Dolphins to do once we have faster communication methods.

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#58

Post by lotyrin »

amarant wrote: post #44
ZeroCool2u wrote: post #12

Wow, there's a lot of cynicism in this thread, even for HN. Regardless of whether or not it works perfectly, surely we can all relate to the childhood desire to 'speak' to animals at one point or another? You can call it a waste of resources or someones desperate attempt at keeping their job if you want, but these are marine biologists. I imagine cross species communication would be a major achievement and seems like…

It's trendy to hate Google, and even more trendy to hate anything AI. The cynicism on display here is little more than virtue signalling and/or upvote farming. Sad to see such thoughtless behaviour has reached even this bastion of reason.

"virtue signalling" really is one of those words/turns of phrase that needs to be put on a high shelf.

Plenty of people genuinely dislike the concentration of economic and computing power that big tech represents. Them expressing this is not "virtue signaling", it is an authentic moral position they hold.

Plenty of people genuinely dislike the disregard for labor and intellectual property rights that anything Gen AI represents. Again, an authentic moral position.

"Virtue signaling" is for example, when a corporate entity doesn't authentically support diversity through any kind of consequential action but does make sure to sponsor the local pride event (in exchange for their logo being everywhere) and swaps their social media logos to rainbow versions.

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#59

Post by dogleash »

Philpax wrote: post #39
xena wrote: post #8

This looks like a marine biologist desperately wanted to keep their job in spite of the "nothing that's not AI" mandate so they made up some bullshit.

That is a surprisingly cynical take; the marine biologists in question seemed pretty enthusiastic in the video!

I'm not saying this is the case here, but every time I've been in internal or promotional videos related to my work, I've been performing for a camera. I'm not playing a theater character, but it's also not what you'd get if you dropped by my desk and asked me the same questions. Calling it acting might seem strong. But it's not not acting. So it's acting.

Re: DolphinGemma: How Google AI is helping decode dolphin communication

#60

Post by k7sune »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #45
ZeroCool2u wrote: post #12

Wow, there's a lot of cynicism in this thread, even for HN. Regardless of whether or not it works perfectly, surely we can all relate to the childhood desire to 'speak' to animals at one point or another? You can call it a waste of resources or someones desperate attempt at keeping their job if you want, but these are marine biologists. I imagine cross species communication would be a major achievement and seems like…

I'm as or more cynical than the next guy - but it seems to me that being able to communicate with animals has high utility for humans. Partly from an emotional or companionship perspective as we've been doing with dogs for a long time, but maybe even on purely utilitarian grounds. If we want to know something about what's going on in the ocean, or high on a mountain or in the sky or whatever - what if we can just ask…

I was just reading how fishing industry’s longlines have caught many dolphins and other bycatches. It would be great to be able to give them warnings, or even better, to ask them to keep other big animals away from the longlines.
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