Apr 15, 2025 11:20:00

Google develops 'DolphinGemma,' an AI that can talk to dolphins, and also has a smartphone-based conversation machine

Google has developed an AI called ' DolphinGemma ' that can generate dolphin conversation sounds. DolphinGemma is designed to run on Google's Pixel series of smartphones, and is expected to contribute to research on dolphin communication.

DolphinGemma: How AI can decipher dolphin communication

https://blog.google/technology/ai/dolphingemma/

Dolphins are known to engage in conversational behaviors, such as making clicking noises during courtship and calling to each other using their own unique 'signature whistles.' The image below shows a spectrogram of the 'whistle sound a mother dolphin makes when calling her calf.'

The Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) , a research project on dolphins, has been observing a specific group of Atlantic spotted dolphins since 1985 and has accumulated a large amount of audio data linked to detailed information on each individual dolphin. Google has developed an AI model called 'DolphinGemma' that can generate dolphin sounds by combining its own base model ' Gemma ' with the data accumulated by WDP.

DolphinGemma has about 400 million parameters and is designed to work with the Pixel series. The spectrograms of the whistle (left) and burst pulse (right) generated by DolphinGemma look like this.

DolphinGemma will be used in WDP's underwater device '

CHAT (Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry) .' CHAT has the ability to translate known dolphin languages into human languages and emit sounds designed for dolphins underwater, and is being continuously improved with the aim of enabling two-way communication between dolphins and humans.

An example of how CHAT can be used is as follows: First, two people approach a dolphin while holding a scarf that will act as a toy for the dolphin.

While the dolphin is looking at the humans, one human makes a sound from CHAT and receives a scarf from the other human.

When the dolphins witness this, they learn that if they make that sound, they will get the scarf.

At the time of writing, CHAT's computer is the Pixel 6. Development of CHAT equipped with the Pixel 9 is already underway, and research using the Pixel 9 and DolphinGemma is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2025.