Scientists from the SETI Institute, the University of California Davis and the Alaska Whale Foundation made the breakthrough when they had a 20-minute conversation with a humpback whale named Twain.
Brenda McCowan, lead author of the study from the University of California Davis, said that after making the call three times, they received a response from the whale. “To attract the animal, I started trying to match the delay in its calls with our calls. So if the fish waited 10 seconds, I waited 10 seconds. We eventually matched each other.” “, he said above IFL Science on May 18.
He did this 36 times in a period of 20 minutes. “We believe this is the first such communication between a human and a humpback whale in its own ‘language,'” said Brenda McCowan.
After “chatting” with the whale, researchers say this encounter could be the first turning point in communication with intelligent non-human animals. “It was like an otherworldly experience,” said Dr. Josephine Hubbard, an animal behaviorist. “You heard them coming to the surface. Then there was a loud breathing sound, then you could see them gathering together in a group. It was an unbelievable sight,” he said.
According to David Gruber, marine biologist and CETI project leader, identifying and decoding these sounds “is very difficult for humans and takes years of research. Thanks to the help of intelligent tools “Intelligence like artificial intelligence (AI), robots, submarines… everything has become a little easier.” Researchers use hydrophones and AI algorithms to record and analyze whale sounds.
The AI is trained on massive data sets of whale calls and human language, looking for patterns and structures that may represent language-like characteristics. This method not only helps decipher the complexity of whale communication but also improves our understanding of language development in intelligent species.