MONTREAL — Peeps trickle out of a soundproof chamber as its door opens. Female zebra finches are chattering away inside the microphone-lined box. The laboratory room sounds like a chorus of squeaky toys.
“They’re probably talking about us a little bit,” says McGill University postdoctoral fellow Logan James.
It’s unclear, of course, what they are saying. But James believes he is getting closer to deciphering their vocalizations through a partnership with the Earth Species Project. The nonprofit laboratory has drawn some of the technology industry’s wealthiest philanthropists — and they want to see more than just scientific progress. On top of breakthroughs in animal language, they expect improved interspecies understanding will foster greater appreciation for the planet in the face of climate change.
The Earth Species Project hopes to decode other creatures’ communications with its pioneering artificial intelligence tools. The goal is not to build a “translator that will allow us to speak to other species,” Director of Impact Jane Lawton said. However, she added, “rudimentary dictionaries” for other animals are not only possible but could help craft better conservation strategies and reconnect humanity with often forgotten ecosystems.
“We believe that by reminding people of the beauty, the sophistication, the intelligence that is resident in other species and in nature as a whole, we can start to, kind of, almost repair that relationship,” Lawton said.
At McGill University, the technology generates specific calls during simulated conversations with live finches that help researchers isolate each unique noise. The computer processes calls in real time and responds with one of its own. Those recordings are then used to train the Berkeley, California-based research group’s audio language model for animal sounds.
This ad hoc collaboration is only a glimpse into what ESP says will come. By 2030, Lawton said, it expects “really interesting insights into how other animals communicate.” Artificial intelligence advancements are expediting the research. New grants totaling $17 million will help hire engineers and at least double the size of the research team, which currently has roughly seven members. Over the next two years, Lawton said, the nonprofit’s researchers will select species that “might actually shift something” in people’s relationship with nature.
Standing to benefit are animal groups threatened by habitat loss or human activity that could be better protected with better understandings of their languages. Existing collaborations aim to document the vocal repertoires — the distinct calls and their different contexts — of the Hawaiian crow and St. Lawrence River beluga whales.
After spending more than two decades extinct in the wild, the crows have been reintroduced to their home of Maui. But some conservationists fear that critical vocabulary has faded in captivity. Lawton said the birds might need to relearn some “words” before