How Researchers are Using AI to Talk to Animals

[CLIP: Bird songs]

Kelso Harper: Have you ever wondered what songbirds are actually saying to each other with all of their chirping? 

Sophie Bushwick: Or what your cat could possibly be yowling about so early in the morning?

[CLIP: Cat meowing]

Harper: Well, powerful new technologies are helping researchers decode animal communication. And even begin to talk back to nonhumans.

Bushwick: Advanced sensors and artificial intelligence might have us at the brink of interspecies communication.

[CLIP: Show theme music]

Harper: Today, we’re talking about how scientists are starting to communicate with creatures like bats and honeybees and how these conversations are forcing us to rethink our relationship with other species. I’m Kelso Harper, multimedia editor at Scientific American.

Bushwick: And I’m Sophie Bushwick, tech editor.

Harper: You’re listening to Science, Quickly. Hey, Sophie.

Bushwick: Hi, Kelso.

Harper: So you recently chatted with the author of a new book called, “The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is Bringing us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and…