My OPINION is that one day humankind will realise that sperm whales are more intelligent than we think they are and we will understand their communication system made up of more than 9,000 ‘codas’, which are short clicks that the whales used to communicate with one another. And when that day arrives we will be ashamed of what we did years earlier in killing them to exploit them.
Scientists have analysed the language of sperm whales using artificial intelligence. They recorded more than 9,000 codas and at the same time they measured their body functions by using on-body suction tags to provide information on heart rate, the depth of their diving and their body positions.
The information was fed through a large language processing model similar to other AI systems which uses algorithms to try and pick out a pattern in the sounds.
The research is published in the journal Nature. They weren’t able to translate the sounds but they did decide that the communication is not simple or arbitrary. It is highly complex and structured in a way which is not dissimilar to human communication.
The researchers believe that they have decoded the phonetic alphabet of an animal species for the first time.
Many scientists believe that only humans had sophisticated communication systems but this study counteracts that belief. It’s the first example of an animal using “duality of patterning” which describes different elements combined to convey meaning.
The founder of Project Ceti, David Gruber, said: “We’ve invested so many resources into studying sperm whales that one of the risks was that they would turn out to be incredibly boring. But I believe we are seeing the tip of the iceberg, which could be a fantastically complex communication system. It’s a deeper structure than we ever imagined.”
Sperm whales have ‘regional dialects’ and the study indicates that their communication is “combinatorial and contextual.” They vary their clicks using rhythm, tempo and tempo variations and they include ornamentation based on what is happening around them. The word “ornamentation” in this context means the equivalent of an exclamation mark in human terms.
Mr Gruber added: “If you study thousands of their clicks, you might see an extra click, and it turns out that in a certain context such as diving that ornament was incredibly meaningful.”
They haven’t deciphered what the sperm whales were saying and are yet to find out the function of codas but as they do further research, they hope to understand better this complex communication system. And they hope that the research could provide an important blueprint for future research on animal communication systems according to The Times report for which I thank them.
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