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A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#71

Post by momirlan »

humaniania wrote: post #54
masswerk wrote: post #24

What I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": App…

I really hope that people are working on machine learning projects for animal communication. If you listen to crows and ravens in the wild it seems clear that there are patterns. I would also like to see technology interfaces developed for animal use. I am worried that much of the natural language development that would occur from frequent interaction is being held back by the social isolation of most species that hu…

Apparently horses have a body language.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#73

Post by secfirstmd »

matheist wrote: post #60
humaniania wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope that people are working on machine learning projects for animal communication. If you listen to crows and ravens in the wild it seems clear that there are patterns. I would also like to see technology interfaces developed for animal use. I am worried that much of the natural language development that would occur from frequent interaction is being held back by the social isolation of most species that hu…

> I would also like to see technology interfaces developed for animal use. I'm working on a device for this! Stay tuned.

Wow. Don't leave us hanging! Tell us more.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#74

Post by amilios »

masswerk wrote: post #50
TheGallopedHigh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure any skilled hunter would argue differently. Just watch Meat Eater on YouTube for use of animal sound mimicary ant it’s use in hunting.

Certainly, but isn't this more like a replay, is it actually suitable for interaction?

I mean, this is the same thing that the whales are doing though. What's the difference? In both cases it's just mimicry.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#75

Post by greesil »

WalterBright wrote: post #65
warent wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? A combination of the two probably. I communicate with my pet cat by mimicking her different kinds of meows, hisses, and purrs. It makes it a lot easier because it's very obvious to me she understands that language, but of course it's not perfect It seems unlikely I'm the only person who does this. Probably a lot of people speak to thei…

There are dogs that have vocabularies of several hundred words. People should breed those together, rather than the incomprehensibly stupid existing breed characteristics.

Smart dogs are working dogs. If they've got no work, they'll get up to bad things usually because you've left them in your house all day. If you want a pet, get a dumb dog. Or, a very lazy breed, like a greyhound.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#76

Post by FartyMcFarter »

momirlan wrote: post #71
humaniania wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope that people are working on machine learning projects for animal communication. If you listen to crows and ravens in the wild it seems clear that there are patterns. I would also like to see technology interfaces developed for animal use. I am worried that much of the natural language development that would occur from frequent interaction is being held back by the social isolation of most species that hu…

Apparently horses have a body language.

So do dogs: for example, if you do something that makes them stressed, they use calming signals such as licking their own lips or yawning.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#77

Post by monocasa »

masswerk wrote: post #24

What I find fascinating about this is that there are various species which have tackled human speech with at least some success (both actively and passively), while, conversely, we are apparently rather bad at participating in their communicative acts (like, imitating utterances in a meaningful way). Is it just for a lack of interest on our side, or are we lacking something else? Edit, regarding "something else": App…

There's strong implications that we as humans have dedicated wetware hardware for streaming out speech from the data structures in our mind. That hardware seems to be bandwidth constrained to about 39 bits per second.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/human-speech-may-hav...

It makes sense that other animals may be able to cargo cult some of the underlying mechanical representations of speech, but would lack the neural hardware that propelled us to dominance on the incredible short time spans of human history and prehistory.

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#78

Post by rangibaby »

greesil wrote: post #75
WalterBright wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are dogs that have vocabularies of several hundred words. People should breed those together, rather than the incomprehensibly stupid existing breed characteristics.

Smart dogs are working dogs. If they've got no work, they'll get up to bad things usually because you've left them in your house all day. If you want a pet, get a dumb dog. Or, a very lazy breed, like a greyhound.

Agreed. I think people forget that smart animals are smart enough to do bad things because they feel like it

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#79

Post by krrrh »

Udik wrote: post #58
humaniania wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope that people are working on machine learning projects for animal communication. If you listen to crows and ravens in the wild it seems clear that there are patterns. I would also like to see technology interfaces developed for animal use. I am worried that much of the natural language development that would occur from frequent interaction is being held back by the social isolation of most species that hu…

Obligatory Gary Larson: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1d/b5/27/1db5279f8a07f1601bf7...

Obligatory Achewood:

http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07282004

Re: A whale who tried to mimic human speech (2014)

#80

Post by ReaLNero »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #47
tomerico wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting watch. TL;DW - Apes like Koko were raised by trainers who did not perform rigorous scientific measurements and were prone to bias. Research on Apes became immoral over time, hence less recent examples exist. The most recent and rigorous study is on a bonobo, where communication is done using touchscreen with buttons saying words (lexigrams). Even in this case interaction seems to be limited to “give me an…

> Research on Apes became immoral over time Teaching apes sign language became viewed as immoral?

Raising them only by interacting with a single person (not of their species!) would be immoral for a human baby, and depending on your views of ethics, also immoral for a gorilla.
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