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I mean.. hate to be a party pooper, but just because we created a the equivalent of gpt3 for whales, does that mean we can do anything useful? Like talking to w
by tsol 5y ago
I mean.. hate to be a party pooper, but just because we created a the equivalent of gpt3 for whales, does that mean we can do anything useful? Like talking to whales.. we haven't even established how their language works.
What language even is, is a good question. I read it once demonstrated as this; some species of monkey has a specific call they do when they see a panther, and it results in all the monkeys who hear it to run up their trees. Now what does this call mean? It could mean "jaguar alert!", pointing to a very specific concept-- a certain animal is here and we all know they're dangerous.
It could also mean "I'm scared!", and maybe it's just monkey see monkey do. It could also mean something more abstract, like a blood curdling scream-- there's no one thing that it means, but as humans we instinctively know that people don't scream like that unless something legitimately awful is happening. So maybe the call communicates emotion rather than an intellectual concept-- it's a call of fear that makes other monkeys who hear it also scared.
Just breaking down what animal language even _is_, is a challenge. I'm not optimistic on hearing any oral histories of whales, or even that they record history. I mean humans only started recording history for its own sake like 2000 years ago with herodotus. Before then we have tablets to keep track of stock, letters, and murals which were often made to depict the strength of the reigning emperor and the foes he vanquished. So maybe if we talk to whales it'll be a little like if aliens came to ancient Egypt to talk to the pharaoh; we'll just get a dictator whale telling us about all the other whales he's killed and how he's the greatest.. haha probably not that, though.
- Misdicorl 5y agoI think your entire post is hugely optimistic despite the negative overtone! The fact that other people see there are these important and fundamental questions that can be addressed by this nascent field gives me hope that this won't be another one off attempt like so many before. I'm very hopeful that it can snowball due to the hype around machine learning even if I'm personally skeptical that machine learning is a particularly fruitful avenue.
- senectus1 5y agoI would expect the vast majority of their comms to be : Nice water over here Loads of food here I'm down to F, anyone else? Do we really have any evidence that suggests it'll be anything else?
- Misdicorl 5y agoThe best example I know offhand is the custom hunting styles of different orca pods. Given that orcas also play I find it more likely that there is rich communication than not.
- yalok 5y agoOrcas are mostly silent, especially when hunting, iirc.
- cetalingua 5y agoActually no, orcas echolocate a lot and also exchange quite a few calls while hunting fish (based on acoustic tag data).
- jtbayly 5y ago“He’s lonely.” No. You’re lonely!
- throwaway2331 5y agoMy less pessimistic (dare I say realistic, ha!) take is that whales will have little of note to say. Complex communication (in contrast to "simple" communication like the evocation of emotions, e.g. fear, anger, sadness, etc.) does seem to require the biological need for it, otherwise the genes that control factors that manifest it ("depth" and richness of sense, proclivity for specific mental models, etc.) do not get reinforced and "bred" into the animal. The other side to this is that communication is mostly non-verbal. For example, chimpanzees, perhaps the most communicationally-advanced animals, besides us, do have a few different "verbal" signals they use. But there is also a richness of non-verbal communication (body language, facial expression, using their hands, etc.). And then these signals have to be also interpreted by other chimpanzees, thus training them to develop new mental models about these signals (and leading way to complex communication). Whereas all whales really have are clicks, whistles, and "pulsed calls." Along with a tail with much less dexterity than a hand (but is still used in communicating amongst themselves). The richness of their communication is much less than the chimp, so so far it seems they can only use it for rudimentary purposes (mating, hunting/intelligent organization and navigation, and figuring out who is part of the "tribe"/pod). But in that vein, they're still closer to a chimp than they are to us. Humans have evolved such complex mental models for the world and other humans within it, that all animals are basically on the same, much lower level in comparison. On a less relevant topic, whales are social animals that stick together, make close bonds with family, and do have a certain "culture" that gets passed down, and is constantly morphing a la "whale songs." It almost pains me to think about what emotions a whale would feel (if it even does) about friends and family that have been hunted to death.
- secondaryacct 5y agoRecording the feats of the emperor is already miles beyond what whales probably do and I d go as far as to call that recorded History,since the goal of writing is to allow the dead to speak to the future, a megalomaniac endeavour only overly inflated brains could think about. After seeing that poor monkey spending his life learning sign language just to ask for more bananas and never asking a tough question, Im a bit pesimistic.
- easygenes 5y agoAlex the African Grey parrot is I think the most developed example we have of animals learning human language and concepts. Alex is notable for being the first non-human to ask an existential question, asking, "What color?" when seeing himself in the mirror. He quickly learned he was grey.