Posted on 01/17/2018 5:11:05 PM PST by nickcarraway
The idea of humans being able to talk to and understand animals may soon become a reality. A researcher is working on a device that may be used as a pet language translator in the future.
Using artificial intelligence, scientists learn how to translate vocalizations and facial expressions of animals into something that humans can understand.
Animal behavior expert Con Slobodchikoff is one of these researchers whose work may allow pets and their owners to effectively converse with each other using a pet translator in less than ten years.
Slobodchikoff, from Northern Arizona University, has studied footage of dogs engaged in a range of behaviors including growling, barking and howling, and used AI to understand how these animals communicate.
He hopes that with the help of machine learning, computers can help humans understand what a particular gesture of pets such as the wagging of the tail, or growling really means.
The researcher has been studying North American prairie dogs for 30 years. He found that the animals have their own language system that conveys complicated instructions and commands.
The rodents also use calls that alert members of their group of incoming threats. Interestingly, these warnings include specific information about the predator such as its size and coat color.
Pet Translator Working with a computer scientist, Slobodchikoff developed an algorithm that converted the prairie dog's vocalizations into English. He has since expanded his work to include studying the behaviors and barkings of dogs.
In 2017, he founded the Zoolingua company to develop a similar tool he used to understand the prairie dog's vocalization to translate facials expressions, sounds and body movements of pets.
"If we can do this with prairie dogs, we can certainly do it with dogs and cats," the animal expert said.
Slobodchikoff studies videos of dogs showing different barks and body movements. He plans to use this to teach an AI algorithm about the communication signals used by animals.
The work is still at an early stage but this could pave way for animals and humans having more effective communication in just ten years. Slobodchikoff wants to use scientific research based on careful experiments to decipher the meaning of a dog's behavior.
Slobodchikoff's ultimate goal is to create a device that humans can pinpoint at a dog to translate barks and woofs into English words. If this becomes possible, humans will be able to know exactly what their pets want and would be more capable of dealing with animals in the future.
About sixty years ago Donald Duck had one to talk to bees.
Grrr...beat me to it...
“Throw the Ball! I want noogies! Where is the ball?!”
My cats would be saying ‘Pet Me, Pet Me, Pet Me.’
With the cat, it’s more like, “Get me some food RIGHT NOW, or I WILL make your life more miserable than you could EVER imagine! Now GET!
That $28,000 antique Persian rug? HAH! No food NOW for me, and that antique rug will be shedded SO small, that you won’t even be able to use it for band aids!”
:)
Probably has something to do with Global Worming.
Pet me, pet me, pet me..!!
I have to poop...I have to poop....I have to poop.
Pretty much it....
I love Larson...............
Ha!!....
BWAAAHAAHAA!
Squirrel!!!!
> With the cat, it’s more like, “Get me some food RIGHT NOW, or I WILL make your life more miserable than you could EVER imagine! Now GET! <
LOL, you’re right. I’m lucky (I guess).
As my cat has gotten older, she has progressed from “Get me some food RIGHT NOW” to “If you don’t get me some food immediately, you are a bad person”.
That was my first thought
And water..water, water...must go in must go in...
I'm sure there's more...Ha!!
I have 3 raccoon “watchdogs”-
They only talk when they have a foodfight.
Poor Ol Pookie (Dog) could never catch a squirrel. Birds Beware....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAEYu5No7Zc
Fish? Mice? look out!
Dang ol dirty ol egg suckin dog...
Bah! How about doing something really difficult like translating what women say into understandable English.
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