- Project CETI is using AI to understand the complex communication system of sperm whales.
- In the new study, project scientists used AI to decode thousands of sperm whale clicks.
- CETI founder David Gruber hopes the research can help humans protect whales from noise pollution.
Whales are highly intelligent and social creatures, so their songs and clicks are probably more than just random noises, but just how complex is whale language?
By deciphering that language, researchers from the Cetacean Echolocation Translation Initiative (CETI) project are coming closer than ever to uncovering the truth.
Scientists have used AI to decode sperm whale clicks and discovered a sophisticated alphabet hidden within the animals' calls.
The alphabet is the sperm whales' basic communication system, David Gruber, founder and president of Project CETI, told Business Insider.
“This suggests that the amount of information they can carry is enormous and that they have very complex, interactive social lives,” he said.
But this is just the beginning: by incorporating this phonetic alphabet into their AI models, Project CETI will be able to gain even greater insight into the complexities of whale language, helping humans better understand and protect these gentle giants.
Breaking the Coda
Sperm whales are the noisiest animals in the ocean, filling the ocean with codas (short successive clicks similar to Morse code) and, like Morse code, sperm whale clicks are primarily used to communicate and socialize with other sperm whales.
The researchers used AI to analyze and look for patterns in the tails of about 9,000 sperm whales collected by the Dominica Sperm Whale Project, an organization that studies sperm whales in the eastern Caribbean.
Their goal was to answer one simple question: Can you predict the next click?
So they trained a machine learning algorithm on 80% of the coders and then ran it to see if it could predict the remaining 20%, Gruber said.
The findings, which they published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications, were surprising.
He added that the algorithm predicted the remaining coders with about 99% accuracy, a good sign that the coders followed linguistic patterns.
As the researchers dug deeper into the database, they discovered that codas actually contain an entire phonetic alphabet made up of various elements that the researchers call “rhythm,” “tempo,” “rubato,” and “ornamentation.”
These elements combine in different ways to form a wide variety of different codas, suggesting that sperm whale language is more expressive and structured than scientists previously thought, the researchers report.
Gruber and his colleagues are still a long way from understanding what the whales are actually saying, but the team continues to dig deeper for clues, hoping to answer questions like: How much information can be conveyed in a single coda? And can we interpret the whales' messages to better understand and possibly protect them?
To answer these questions, the CETI project is collecting more data.
Think like a baby whale
The CETI project will partner with the Dominica Sperm Whale Project to observe and record sperm whale communication using a variety of technologies.
To record the codas, they attach acoustic biologging devices to the whales, which capture their calls and provide data specific to each individual whale.
Gruber said CETI also involves building a fixed-bottom listening station on the island of Dominica that will record sperm whale calls over a wide area and create an interactive, three-dimensional map of the whales' locations at any given time.
In addition to these auditory recordings, the researchers are also using drones to study the whales' body language, as well as on-site observations by Project CETI researchers, which provide necessary context to help the team better understand these sounds.
“Imagine a baby trying to learn language. They're paying attention, they're looking for context. We feel like we're the baby whale,” Gruber said.
How can you help save whales?
“Every day we ask ourselves: How is this going to help the whales? What benefits is this going to bring to the whales?” Gruber said of the project's research.
One potential benefit is improved noise pollution reduction.
Research shows that ship traffic is on the rise and the resulting underwater noise pollution is an issue of growing concern, which NOAA says can disrupt whale behavior by affecting their ability to hear each other.
A better understanding of how whales communicate could inform ways to manage underwater noise pollution and help researchers better understand how it affects animals, Gruber said.
“I know that amazing things will come from our understanding of these complex, majestic and beautiful animals,” he said.
