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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

#81

Post by nfw2 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #73
lotyrin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I believe it meets the definition of virtue signaling to express a position you don’t do anything to advocate - which is the vast majority of opinions expressed on the Internet. It can be a sincerely held belief but if you’re not taking action around it I don’t see any difference from the corporate example you gave.

Your statement is virtue signaling according to its own definition unless you've taken action to prevent people complaining about Google.

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

#82

Post by sally_glance »

lesuorac wrote: post #57
doublerabbit wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you're overestimating the dolphins here. Even humans have trouble not placing collective blame on groups of people they don't know well - it even has a name in social psychology, the "out-group homogeneity effect". Just think about opposing political groups or international relations.

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

#83

Post by stevage »

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.

> It's trendy to hate Google,

Calling something "trendy" is a great way to try to dismiss it without actually providing any counterargument. The deep suspicion of anything Google does is extremely well justified IMHO.

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

#84

Post by amarant »

stevage wrote: post #83
amarant wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's trendy to hate Google, Calling something "trendy" is a great way to try to dismiss it without actually providing any counterargument. The deep suspicion of anything Google does is extremely well justified IMHO.

Well enlighten me then, What's wrong with helping marine biologists trying to make sense of dolphin language?

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

#85

Post by ahartman00 »

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…

>lots of human-translated passages in their corpus

Yes. I remember reading that the EU parliamentary proceedings in particular are used to train machine translation models. Unfortunately, I cant remember where I read that. I did find the dataset: https://paperswithcode.com/dataset/europarl

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

#86

Post by efitz »

9dev wrote: post #76
k7sune wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or, like, we could stop ravaging the oceans by industrial fishing, stop pretending magical technology will save the day, and try to limit our resource consumption to sustainable levels? Humanity’s relationship with animals is so schizophrenic. On the one hand, let’s try to learn how to talk to cute dolphins and chat with them what it’s like to swim! , and on the other, well yeah that steak on my table may have once l…

Humans are omnivores. I am unapologetic about obeying biological imperatives to eat other animals.

At the same time, I want to be as humane as practical; I don’t want to cause needless suffering to any creature. If I kill a bug, I don’t want it to suffer. Same with food animals.

The more like me an animal is, the less I want to eat it.

There are a lot of humans. Any action to forcefully reduce the number of humans or to forcefully reduce birth rates is almost certainly way more morally abhorrent to me, than doing what is necessary to feed those humans.

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

#87

Post by engineer_22 »

This crowd seems to be cross pollinated with the sci-fi / space exploration set. Communication with cetaceans seems like such an obvious springboard for developing frameworks and techniques for first contact with E.T. /If/ you believe they're out there... And if not, what an incredible opportunity in its own right.

But, since context is so important to communication, I think this would be easier to accomplish with carefully built experiments with captive dolphin populations first. Beginning with wild dolphins is like dropping a guy from New York City into rural Mongolia and hoping he'll learn the language.

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

#88

Post by blactuary »

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.

Regardless of your or my feelings on this specific topic, "virtue signalling" is good because virtue is good and signalling to others that we ought to be good is also good. The use of that term as a pejorative is itself toxic cynicism

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

#89

Post by bcoates »

9dev wrote: post #76
k7sune wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or, like, we could stop ravaging the oceans by industrial fishing, stop pretending magical technology will save the day, and try to limit our resource consumption to sustainable levels? Humanity’s relationship with animals is so schizophrenic. On the one hand, let’s try to learn how to talk to cute dolphins and chat with them what it’s like to swim! , and on the other, well yeah that steak on my table may have once l…

[flagged]

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

#90

Post by stevage »

amarant wrote: post #84
stevage wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's trendy to hate Google, Calling something "trendy" is a great way to try to dismiss it without actually providing any counterargument. The deep suspicion of anything Google does is extremely well justified IMHO.

Well enlighten me then, What's wrong with helping marine biologists trying to make sense of dolphin language?

How would you respond if asked you to explain why a tobacco company sponsoring a kid's sporting event might be anything less than wonderful?
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