[swframe2]

I hope we create whalegemma (similar to dolphingemma) so we can explain to them how to co-exist better with humans (e.g. avoid this area during their whale hunting season, travel to this area if you get sick or tangled in rope).

[zyxin]

There is a group that is attempting to communicate with whales by training a transformer based model on whale sounds.

https://www.projectceti.org/

[b112]

https://www.projectceti.org/blog-posts/when-text-hides-text-...

[SummSolutions]

Animals have been highly underestimated, and it’s encouraging to see this work being done. This article discusses their use of vowels and diphthongs. https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berkeley-and-project-ceti-st...

[SapporoChris]

DolphinGemma at this point hasn't accomplished much. If they had anything groundbreaking they probably would mention it on their page. But instead it's filled with many hopeful statements. https://deepmind.google/models/gemma/dolphingemma/

[AlecSchueler]

It's just a pity we couldn't figure out how to better coexist with whales.

[CalRobert]

We know how, but we choose not to.

The same goes for most of our ecological problems, really.

[amelius]

If asked the question, most people would choose to, I believe.

[CalRobert]

They wouldn’t pay a nickel more for gas to save their own kid.

[b112]

You are a chipmunk. Every second is met with immense risk of predation, whether cat or hawk. Yet you must still seek food, mate, and water. You must "live in the moment", ignore future hypothetical dangers, and simply live.

You must be in your territory, defending it daily from others. You must live knowing the cat sleeps 50 feet away.

Future dangers must be misty, put out of mind, lest you become paralyized with fear and inaction. To be concerned for unimmediate danger, is impossible.

We are descended from such.

Humans have a very limited capacity to be concerned too far in the future. And think, if we were, how the probabilities expand that danger the further out you go.

Then also understand that the average IQ is 100, and consider how many are below that.

So, as a chipmunk do you work diligently collecting nuts for your winter, and your family? Or do you give up some nuts for a future that is misty, distant, opaque?

Don't be too hard on people, they're only human. They're only, really, chipmunks with bigger brains. And many are trying.

[CalRobert]

I get you but I think most people are really very selfish when the negative externalities of their actions are diffuse. You don’t see an individual your actions harm, but the harm is real.

[mulmen]

But you’re not a chipmunk.

[gilrain]

…while not changing anything about our behavior, you mean. Because we were never ignorant of how to do better; we just couldn’t accept even any inconvenience, any obstacle to our “growth”.

[AlecSchueler]

I'm well aware! Not only are we unable to change our behaviour we in fact have the hubris to imagine that if we could only use our technology to communicate with the whales that it would be enough to say

> "Don't go to these places—even though you want to, even though your family has been breeding there for generations—because that's our special whale hunting area"

And that their behaviour would change for us, that their response would simply be:

> "No worries, thanks for the heads up! Sorry for getting in the way of your harpoons"

[dmos62]

Erm, it's illegal to talk to dolphins: https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2026/04/02/is-it...

[jibal]

No it isn't and that clickbait article doesn't say it is.

[dmos62]

What makes it a clickbait article?

>There is a federal law that prohibits people from communicating with dolphins.

>It’s called the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Signed in 1972 by President Richard Nixon, the federal law was created to protect marine mammals from being hunted, harassed, captured or killed.

>In a sense, talking to or communicating with dolphins could qualify as harassment under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

>There are two levels of harassment, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Harassment at one level is considered “any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance that has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild.”

>On another level, harassment is defined by the NOAA as “acts having the potential to disturb (but not injure) a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by disrupting behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering.”