[ZeroCool2u]

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 a worthwhile endeavor to me.

[Nifty3929]

I'm as or more cynical than the next guy - but it seems to me that being able to communicate with animals has high utility for humans. Partly from an emotional or companionship perspective as we've been doing with dogs for a long time, but maybe even on purely utilitarian grounds.

If we want to know something about what's going on in the ocean, or high on a mountain or in the sky or whatever - what if we can just ask some animals about it? What about for things that animals can naturally perceive that humans have trouble with - certain wavelengths of light or magnetic fields for example? How about being able to recruit animals to do specific tasks that they are better suited for? Seems like a win for us, and maybe a win for them as well.

Not sure what else, but history suggests that the more people have been able to communicate with each other, the better the outcomes. I assume this holds true more broadly as well.

[k7sune]

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.

[gazebo64]

I know this comment is totally innocent but it does kind of bum me out to be at a point in time where instead of addressing our impact on the environment directly, we're trying to make computers that can talk to dolphins so we can tell them to stay out of the way lol

[kuhewa]

You don't tend to hear about it and not that there isn't still progress to be made, but there has been tonnes of progress on fisheries interactions with protected bycatch species. For ex the infamous dolphin problem in the eastern tropical Pacific purse seine tuna fishery is down 99.8% from its peak to the point populations are recovering, despite the fishery intentionally setting on dolphin schools to catch > 150,000 t of yellowfin tuna per year.

Pelagic gillnets are probably the gear that still have the most issues with dolphin bycatch, and acoustic pingers that play a loud ultrasonic tone when they detect an echolocation click are already used to reduce interactions in some fisheries.

[renewiltord]

One of the things I think is amazing is that people will say “here’s a way to make the world better” and others will react with “it’s so sad that you propose making the world better instead of making it perfect”. I think it’s great.

[9dev]

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 lead a subjective experience before it was slaughtered, and mass-farming it wrecks the ecosystem I depend on to live, but gosh it’s so tasty, I can’t give that up!

[efitz]

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.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

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

This is akin to saying ''humans are violent, so i am unapologetic about obeying biological imperatives to commit violence''.

So just be honest: you WANT to eat meat because you like it, consequences be damned.

And of course if you truly want to feed as many humans as possible the only solution is vegetarianism or even veganism. Meat is just way too wasteful to be a decent solution.

[throwup238]

> And of course if you truly want to feed as many humans as possible the only solution is vegetarianism or even veganism. Meat is just way too wasteful to be a decent solution.

This myth needs to die. Two thirds of all farmland on this planet is pasture [1] that isn’t fertile enough to grow food for humans except by raising animals on it. If we were to switch to a plant based diet, the vast majority of our farmland as a civilization becomes unusable. Most of the world uses animals to generate calories from unproductive land, first via dairy and then slaughtering the animals for food.

Not to mention, animals have been crucial sources of sustainable fertilizer for many thousands of years, without which agriculture would never have been as productive.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

[kcatskcolbdi]

Do you also have this negative attitude towards all other non-vegitarian animals, or is it just for humans since they have more capability to cause more ecological harm?

[tenuousemphasis]

Really? You cannot fathom an animal population that has exceeded it's ecosystem's capacity and has no predators so needs to be culled?

[nandomrumber]

Doesn't happen.

That situation always auto-corrects as resource availability shifts.

What does happen is humans find things like mice / locust / kangaroo plagues inconvenient, so we decide to intervene.

It's not like lions get tired of all those pesky gazelle getting up in their grillz and find the need to get about in helicopters thinning the herd.

[patcon]

Gross.

[Der_Einzige]

What’s gross is the idea that plants are “lower” and thus less deserving of value to life. Either embrace radically life denying Jainism, anti-natalism, voluntary extinction movement, and benevolent world exploder theory - or admit that you are just as cruel as those you implicitly claim to be better than (as a presumably non gross person)

But white vegans aren’t prepared to actually reckon with the logical conclusion of their ideas. Go read David Benatar (he’s a vegan whose actually consistent btw)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Never_to_Have_Been

[pegasus]

Why? GP's arguments seem pretty reasonable and tame. What are yours?

[JSteph22]

>we could stop ravaging the oceans by industrial fishing

To do this likely would require large-scale war.

[singleshot_]

I suppose this isn’t exactly what you were getting at, but now I can’t help but wonder exactly how delicious a dolphin is.

[theyinwhy]

Dear Mr Dolphin, can you please tell the large sharks to not go that way?

- No, f... the sharks!

[addicted]

Or, you know, don’t fish at all so we don’t kill possibly trillions of sentient fish every year for no necessary reason whatsoever?

Side bonus, we also don’t kill the highly sentient and highly intelligent creatures you’re concerned about.

[nandomrumber]

3 billion people get at least 20% of their protein from fish, and roughly 500 million rely on fishing for a pay check.[1]

Those people can all just starve, and you're fine with that?

1. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/will-there-be-enough-f...

[doublerabbit]

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..."

[iury-sza]

There's an Apple TV+ series called Extrapolations with a plot of a dystopian future heavily affected by climate change. One of the plotlines involve humans successfully developing the technology to communicate with humpback whales.

So, the story involves an animal DNA archivist interacting with what's presented as the last living humpback whale, focusing on its isolation etc. It turns out the research lab's goal is to trick the whale by faking mating signals, aiming to get it to reveal information about whale history and culture. It's essentially data mining the animal.

[Nifty3929]

I'm not suggesting a Disney utopian fantasy. I'm just suggesting that in a very pragmatic way, we can ask them questions and get meaningful answers, or ask them to do things for us.

What's going on down the the sea over there? Would you mind pulling that thing from here to there?

Or whatever - I don't know what we'll figure out to do, but certainly something.

As far as them being mad at us, I doubt they will be, but I'd be interested to get their perspective - if they have one.

I do not believe we can expect anything resembling a human level of intelligence to be discovered.

[nirav72]

Or do you mind going over there and planting this round thing to the side of the ship belonging to the other humans?

[lesuorac]

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.

[sally_glance]

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.

[9dev]

So you think you’re not responsible for the fucked-up oceans because you let other people throw your trash into the sea for you, and the organically farmed salmon you eat surely wasn’t produced under atrocious conditions?

[Der_Einzige]

Embrace antinatalism and life denial or embrace amor fati. Sitting on the sidelines like so many others do on this topic is intellectually bankrupt.

[lesuorac]

Eh, collective punishment is the fallacy.

These problems are generally industrial in nature so it's very knowable as to where a large source of pollution comes from.

There just isn't a political will to actually enforce laws.

[lukev]

It's not even about the communication! Just having more insight into the brains and communication of other mammals has a ton of scientific value in its own right.

Sometimes it's good just to know things. If we needed to find a practical justification for everything before we started exploring it, we'd still be animals.

[davedigerati]

I for one am simply happy to see us trying to apply LLMs to something other than replacing call centers... humankind SHOULD be exploring and learning sometimes even when there isn't an ROI.

[j45]

The ability to understanding bee's communication was made possible, so I'm not sure why dolphins would seem harder?

[amarant]

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.

[lotyrin]

"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 represents. Again, an authentic moral position.

"Virtue signaling" is for example, when a corporate entity doesn't authentically support diversity through any kind of consequential action but does make sure to sponsor the local pride event (in exchange for their logo being everywhere) and swaps their social media logos to rainbow versions.

[vlovich123]

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.

[nfw2]

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

[vlovich123]

Did I say anything about people complaining about Google? I think you misread or misinterpreted what I wrote.

[nfw2]

You haven’t taken actions against me misinterpreting things. Why do you keep virtue signaling?

[lotyrin]

I suspect that the people that dislike supporting Google probably don’t support Google. I imagine that the people who dislike supporting generative AI do not support or use it? Why are you assuming they are hypocrites?

[smitty1e]

> Plenty of people genuinely dislike the concentration of economic and computing power that big tech represents.

The harder question that of risk management between the computing power we like on the one hand and its tendency to enable both megalomaniacs at the high end, and the unspeakable depravity of child pornography at the low.

[amarant]

None of those points are even remotely relevant in this case, unless you're worried about dolphin-English translators losing their livelihood?

Mindlessly parroting such talking points where they're not applicable is also a form of virtue-signalling.

And the comments in this thread are predominantly such virtue signalling nonsense.

[lotyrin]

I don’t remember saying I agree with these positions. I am actually opposed to the idea of making policy decisions based on moral values rather than consequentialist ethics, so I disagree with both.

[eric_cc]

When you make these tribal, political comments in a thread like this one - signaling your virtues - what do you prefer us to call it?

[stevage]

> 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.

[amarant]

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

[stevage]

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?

[signatoremo]

Terrible analogy. This is not sponsoring but research. Google didn’t just give money in exchange for publicity. Google has traditionally invested in fundamental research that isn't commercially potential, at least in the short term.

If a tobacco company invested in lung cancer research that resulted in some treatment breakthroughs, that research should be celebrated, while their main business should continue to be condemned.

[surajrmal]

This is closer to being upset at any and all innovations done by an American because the USA does some terrible things. Not all parts of Google are directly tainted by ads and the people on these teams genuinely think they are working on important problems that help advance humanity. I don't think they are wrong to feel that way.

[explodes]

The dolphins aren't causing cancer in children.

[jbeninger]

Neither is said sporting event

[542354234235]

But they might be planning to. We won't know until we are able to ask them.

[itchyjunk]

That we know of!

[reptilian]

Google is where great technology and innovation goes to die.

Please give me one example in the last decade where meta or Google research has led to actual products or open-sourced technologies, and not just expensive proprietary experiments shelved after billions were spent on them?

I'll wait.

[awwaiid]

The llama models

[j45]

Too often it's just insecurity masking itself as posturing.

[blactuary]

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

[janalsncm]

Don’t understand the cynicism either. Is this not way cooler than the latest pre-revenue series F marketing copy slop bot startup?

To me this task looks less like next token prediction language modeling and more like translating a single “word” at a time into English. It’s a pretty tractable problem. The harder parts probably come from all the messiness of hearing and playing sounds underwater.

I would imagine adapting to new vocab would be pretty clunky in an LLM based system. It would be interesting if it were able to add new words in real time.

[nsonha]

Childhood dream aside, this to me seems like a much more legit use of AI than, say, generative art, so lame and pointless.

[morkalork]

I'd be less cynnical if researchers hadn't announced the same thing like 10 years ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/science/dolphins-machine-...

[canyon289]

Ah this is different. The Nytimes article is about identifying/classifying dolphins from audio. This new model is about communicating with dolphins from generated audio.

The difference between recognizing someone from hearing them, and actually talking to them!

[garciasn]

Gemini supposedly allows for conversational speech w/your data. Have you tried it? We have; it's laughably bad and can't get the most basic stuff right from a well-crafted datamart.

If it can't do the most basic stuff, please explain to be how in the fuck it is going to understand dolphin language and why would should believe its results anyway?

[groby_b]

"We couldn't make something work, so nobody can make anything work" is also a claim you can make, yes.

It's rather unsound reasoning, but you certainly can.

[garciasn]

Oh I can make it work; but it’s definitely not as easy as they claim for business users and that was my point.

[waldohatesyou]

They have sufficient control over their model that they can presumably tailor it to their needs. Perhaps if you acquired analogous control, you’d have more success.