
Translation technology may let humans speak with dolphins - davidw
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/translation-technology-may-let-humans-speak-with-dolphins/
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hvs
"May" in this case meaning "we haven't actually done _any_ testing yet." Can't
anyone wait until they have tested their theory before having an article
written about it? This title could just as easily have been "Humans are going
to record and play different sounds to dolphins with the hope that something
happens."

~~~
Goladus
My guess is that this article will help the project compete for funding. The
name of the project (CHAT) and its principle investigators are very prominent
in the article, as well as promising descriptions of the technology already
developed.

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VladRussian
every small step toward recognizing intelligence of others is a great leap for
humanity. I think before human species is able to move any further in its
development, the first step it must to make is to step out of the "i'm the top
of the God's creation" closet.

[http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/132650631/new-language-
discove...](http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/132650631/new-language-discovered-
prairiedogese) :

\---------------

So he devised a test. He had four (human) volunteers walk through a prairie
dog village, and he dressed all the humans exactly the same — except for their
shirts. Each volunteer walked through the community four times: once in a blue
shirt, once in a yellow, once in green and once in gray.

He found, to his delight, that the calls broke down into groups based on the
color of the volunteer's shirt. "I was astounded," says Slobodchikoff. But
what astounded him even more, was that further analysis revealed that the
calls also clustered based on other characteristics, like the height of the
human. "Essentially they were saying, 'Here comes the tall human in the blue,'
versus, 'Here comes the short human in the yellow,' " says Slobodchikoff.

Amazingly, it doesn't stop there. Slobodchikoff's next move was to see if
prairie dogs could differentiate between abstract shapes. So he and his
students built two wooden towers on each side of a prairie dog village. They
then made cardboard cutouts of circles, squares and triangles and ran them out
along a wire strung between the two towers, so the shapes sort of floated
through the village about three feet from the ground. And the prairie dogs,
Slobodchikoff found, were able to tell the difference between the triangle and
the circle, but, alas, they made no mention of the difference between the
square and the circle.

\---------------------

I wonder how aliens analyze our intelligence:

\- sent round blue flying saucer - a lot of buzz

\- sent stick-looking device [http://abcnews.go.com/International/ufo-china-
closes-airport...](http://abcnews.go.com/International/ufo-china-closes-
airport-prompts-investigation/story?id=11159531) \- a lot of the same buzz.

Conclusion: probably the humans can't distinguish the abstract shapes.

~~~
rokhayakebe
_the first step it must to make is to step out of the "i'm the top of the
God's creation" closet_

I want to give you 100 of my own karma points. I just do not know where this
believe that we are better comes from. [This is totally hypocritical coming
from me since I eat meat. Nevertheless]

~~~
sukuriant
side-question: what does eating meat have to do with thinking you're better
than other kinds of creatures?

Do lions think they're better? Dogs? Raccoons? Barracuda? Dolphin? Seal? Any-
other-carnivore/omnivore

~~~
VladRussian
the predators don't typically eat their own kind, so there is definitely
something in their mind that facilitates that separation. In the case of
humans that "something" is the idea that "we are better and they are stupid".

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pasbesoin
Did anyone see the recently circulating video of the cat on the dock
interacting with dolphins. Including repeated and extended nuzzling and no
signs of aggression.

I immediate thought that, in part, the dolphins might be attracted by,
intrigued by the cat's probably purring, sensing it through their jaws. But
there seems to be a patience and curiosity there that speaks to significantly
more than mere "animal instinct".

We already communicate with dolphins, and experiments have shown that they can
understand the syntax and semantics of request/command structures (the same
communication elements in different orders ('sentence structures', so to
speak) have different meanings).

What will they say when we finally understand them? "Took you long enough."

~~~
bh42222
_What will they say when we finally understand them? "Took you long enough."_

I don't believe that communication between dolphins and trainers has been
strictly one way. I'm pretty sure a trainer can easily read a lot from a
dolphin's actions, sounds, etc.

And keep in mind, the other great apes are wicked smart, like smarter then
small human children smart, way smarter then the smartest dog, but still not
smart enough to say something like "Took you long enough to teach us sign
language."

~~~
philwelch
What they did say was more like this:
<http://www.koko.org/world/talk_aol.html>

~~~
dodo53
I always think Alex the grey parrot is impressive too
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6KvPN_Wt8I>

~~~
cbr
was, sadly

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Lost_BiomedE
One documentary on netflix had a couple training dolphins. They used signs to
tell the dolphin to do different tricks. At the end of their training the
dolphin had to invent a new trick. They then had two dolphins do the tricks
together. At the end of the training, they asked the dolphins to do a new
trick, and the dolphins would coordinate a brand new trick together on the fly
and perform it simultaneously!

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Alex3917
How can you write an article about talking with dolphins without linking to at
least one John C. Lilly interview?

<http://www.futurehi.net/docs/Here_To_Alternity.html>

[http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/lilly_john/lilly_jo...](http://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/lilly_john/lilly_john_interview1.shtml)

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yannski
So finally David Brin could be premonitory, cf
<http://www.davidbrin.com/upliftbooks.htm>

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lars
From a machine learning perspective this doesn't seem like such a daunting
task. We have pretty good speech recognition for human language (plus
acceptable speech synthesis). Assuming dolphins have a smaller vocabulary than
humans, speech recognition of dolphins should strictly speaking be a simpler
problem (although it would be significantly harder to record the training
data).

~~~
ChuckMcM
Of if dolphins have a sense of humor all bets are off.

Dophin 1, "Hey I bet we can get that thing to say 'bite me' when it greets
someone!"

Dolphin 2, "You think? Ok, every time we meet in front of them you say 'bite
me' and i'll say 'wheree?'"

~~~
stan_rogers
Oh, I'm sure there would be a few unfortunate "drop your panties, Sir William;
I cannot wait until lunchtime" incidents, but with an automated Hungarian
Phrasebook[1], we'll eventually learn to get by.

More to the point, though, we have no reason to assume that dolphins, any more
than, say, apes, have the ability to "chat" -- to communicate about things
displaced from the here and now. It's worth a go, of course, but our
expectations shouldn't be too high going in.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao>

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siiily
That's good news for dolphins, they must be willing to read
news.ycombinator.com, first thing they can do is create their own version of
fb.

~~~
VladRussian
may be they went into the ocean to avoid the future of creating fb

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siiily
As dolphins hearing or seeing system is 3D their mind is very different from
ours. Before trying to communicate we should be able to imagine what kind of
society we could construct with this 3D sensor system.

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AshleysBrain
Do dolphins have anything interesting to say?

~~~
parfe
Obviously, "So long and thanks for all the fish."

But more importantly communication is the first step towards mutual respect if
dolphins are sentient.

~~~
ghotli
A part of me feels like conscious, sentient beings should have equal
protection under the law. Just because they don't encode knowledge in written
language or make tools like we do doesn't mean that they may be any less
sentient.

~~~
pavel_lishin
So, which part of you _doesn't_ feel that conscious and sentient beings ought
to have equal protection?

~~~
defen
The part that fears a warlike alien civilization.

~~~
ceejayoz
Our laws already cope with warlike human civilizations, why would an alien one
be any different from an equal protection standpoint?

~~~
defen
Potential inability to understand or communicate with them in a (perceived)
kill or be killed situation.

~~~
RickHull
[http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-
collide.pd...](http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pdf)

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dolvlo
Somehow, this made me think of the Baby Translator from the Simpsons

~~~
hugh3
I prefer the dog translator from the Far Side cartoon.

It turns out every barking dog is saying "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

~~~
Groxx
also: Dexter's Lab. "Mooooooooooon!"

~~~
bitwize
"There's the thing! There's the thing! Right there, it's the thing! The
thing!"

"Moonmoonmoonmooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon!"

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adavies42
that's one down. next up: world hunger, then the warrior robot race.

