Google announced that it is planning to build a large-scale natural language model "DolphinGemma" based on Gemma model technology, which can understand the meaning behind dolphin sounds. It is expected to be paired with a system called "CHAT" (Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry) to communicate with dolphins and determine whether they can communicate with them.
It is currently known that dolphins make different sounds during different behavioral activities. They can even judge the state of the environment through various sounds and even have social behaviors like humans. Therefore, understanding the meaning behind the sounds made by dolphins has always been an ongoing research project for humans.
This research is a collaboration between the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) team, Google, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Using years of underwater video footage of the same dolphin population, the team trained the model using the sounds made by various dolphins in the videos. They created a "DolphinGemma" model with approximately 4 million parameters. The model is expected to be used in conjunction with the "CHAT" system to generate accurate "dolphin language."
Among them, the "CHAT" system operates on the computing power of the Pixel 9 phone itself and can be tested in a more flexible way. For example, the Pixel 9 phone can be fixed in a specific device and used on dolphins' favorite items to observe the dolphins' interactive behavior with these devices in "dolphin language".
If the research on "dolphin language" progresses smoothly, Google may have the opportunity to expand its research to more animal "languages".
