AI Guides Breakthrough In Understanding Whale Language

Researchers have discovered new elements in whale vocalizations, particularly those of sperm whales, that bear similarities to human speech. The study, led by Gašper Beuš from the University of California, Berkeley, identified acoustic properties in whale clicks, such as pitch, that are analogous to human vowels and diphthongs.

The researchers used an AI model, fiwGAN, to imitate sperm whale codas and found that the AI predicted meaningful elements in whale vocalizations. Analyzing a dataset of 3948 sperm whale codas recorded between 2014 and 2018, the researchers identified two unique “coda vowels” exchanged in whale conversations. This discovery suggests that whale communication may be more complex than previously thought, with similarities to the nuanced information carried by human speech.