It was 1970 when marine biologist Roger Payne first brought the mesmerizing sound of humpback whales to a wide audience via the celebrated Songs of the Humpback Whale album. Back then, the possibility of deciphering those eerie vocalizations seemed a far-out idea plucked straight from science fiction.
But breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, which have come at extraordinary pace in the last decade as computer processing power burgeoned and algorithms became more advanced, made this a realistic prospect. Last April, an interdisciplinary group of scientists and experts embarked on a five-year effort, dubbed Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), that aims to tap these technological advances and decode the language of one of the world’s largest predators: the sperm whale.
“Sperm whales are incredibly intelligent and highly socially aware creatures,” says David Gruber, a marine biologist at City University of New York and the leader of Project CETI. “We believe that by bringing humans closer to an animal species whose behavior is more similar to our culture and intellect than any other living being, we can help them care more for every form of life on earth.”
