In a groundbreaking development at the intersection of artificial intelligence and marine biology, Google has announced DolphinGemma, an innovative AI model designed to decode and generate dolphin vocalizations. The project emerges from a collaboration between Google, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP).
DolphinGemma, built on Google's Gemini AI architecture, processes and predicts dolphin sounds including whistles, clicks, and burst pulses - the core elements of cetacean communication. The model leverages over 40 years of WDP's research data collected from wild dolphins in the Bahamas.
Working alongside DolphinGemma is CHAT (Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry), a system integrated into modified Google Pixel phones that can emit synthetic dolphin-like sounds. The current focus is on teaching dolphins new synthetic whistles associated with familiar objects like seagrass and scarves, creating a basic shared vocabulary between humans and dolphins.
"The goal would be to someday speak 'dolphin', and we're really trying to crack the code," explains Denise Herzing from the Wild Dolphin Project.
The AI model processes incoming dolphin vocalizations and predicts logical sound sequences, similar to predictive text technology in smartphones. While full dolphin sentence translation isn't yet possible, the system represents a major step toward enabling basic interspecies communication.
Google plans to release DolphinGemma as an open model this summer, allowing researchers studying various dolphin species to expand its applications. The project could revolutionize our understanding of cetacean intelligence and open new possibilities for human-animal communication.
The development builds on recent advances in AI-powered animal communication research, including studies of dog barks and whale songs. Dolphins make particularly suitable subjects due to their sophisticated social nature and their use of clear, recordable acoustic signals.
While we may be years away from complex conversations with dolphins, DolphinGemma marks a promising advance in bridging the communication gap between humans and these intelligent marine mammals.