Using AI to translate animal communication isn’t just a tech challenge. It’s a philosophical one. AI is making serious moves in decoding animal sounds (listen to this podcast episode from The Economist), but here’s the kicker: even if we crack their “language,” would it make sense to us? I'm really not sure we can ever truly understand what animals are saying when their entire experience of the world is so different from ours! How can we figure what it's like to be bats “seeing” with sound. Or birds feeling Earth’s magnetic fields. And what about dolphins living in a 3D underwater soundscape. Don't let me start with how we’re here struggling to swat a fly because it sees us in slow motion.🤦♀️

If AI manages to translate what animals say, it might force us to rethink language, meaning, and our place in nature. Because what does that say about how we treat them? Imagine if we discover they’re saying profound things like, “Hey, don’t overfish my home”?

I'm curious... if you could chat with a dolphin, what’s the first thing you’d ask? Better yet, what do you think they’d roast us for? 😅