By Maria Victoria Bardon Soto, Fall 2023.

Humans have wanted to communicate with animals throughout history. From ancient myths to fiction books to TV shows and movies to owning pets, we have always been in search of a connection with the natural world. As Marine Biologist David Gruber explains, communication with animals can “change our perspective of ourselves” as we would be given a glimpse into the world as it is, our current conceptions [1]. Led by Gruber, Project CETI, or the Cetacean Translation Initiative, tries to breach the gap of communication with sperm whales and inspires people to protect their habitats and livelihoods. 

Researchers chose sperm whales because they own the biggest brain in the natural world, six times larger than ours [3]. Their large brain lets the whales create a complex communication system that thrives in their tight knit social groups, differentiating them from other animals [2]. They also have a large nose that hides “the world’s largest biological sonar system” [3]. With this sonar they produce short bursts of sound called “clicks.” A sequence of clicks over a longer period of socialization are “codas,” which can be “exchanged in duet-like sequences between two or more sperm whales” thus establishing a definable, and structured form of dialogue [3]. These conversations — the truths about their social systems, their environment, their thoughts and feelings — can fundamentally change humanity’s worldview. 

Yet understanding the communication is still hard for us. We comprehend communication from our own experiences with language — with its structures, syntax, composition, and semantics, yet even with such patterns it is still difficult to learn another human language that does not share pronunciation or alphabetic similarities with our native language. Our preconceived idea of what “communication” is prevents us from learning easily and imposes biases on our translations. Another challenge for the researchers is it’ll take too long to decode millions of codas by hand, alluding meaning to all of the different sounds and ruling out the possibilities [3]. 

Yet new technologies can speed things up. Machine Learning (ML) for Natural Language Processing (NLP) can determine intended meanings and generate text. Scientists aim to use NLP to create linguistic models of phonology, sentence structure, phonetics, syntax and semantics to identify patterns in sperm whale communication [1]. These models would then be used as a form of translation by project CETI’s multidisciplinary team — ranging from robotic and linguistics experts to marine biologists. They plan to spend the next 5 years off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean, where they will research the same 30 families of sperm whales, gathering codas and clicks with the aid aquatic robots in an effort to construct a blueprint for the language of whales that could be used to establish a form of dialogue [1]. Of course, the process will be arduous, yet if it is achieved, conversation could be extended to other species and inspire a generation of people to want to protect the oceans. 

And this inspiration has been felt in the past. In the 1970s, marine biologist, and former Principal Advisor of Project CETI, Roger Payne (1935-2023) and his team, discovered that whales sing to each other. They went on to release an album full of songs of the humpback whale, which inspired the “Save the Whales” movement of the 70s, culminating in the official end of large-scale hunting of whales in the United States [5]. People heard these songs and understood that there was intelligence behind them; they were enamored by the sight of the natural world singing. And they felt hope and wonder. 

To instill hope and wonder is also why organizations such as SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, exist. The search assumes intelligence to be a diverse phenomena, of which Project CETI shifts the focus towards the oceans—sperm whales. These mammals have complex systems of culture and society that are so remote from our own yet still intrinsic to this earth. They have inherent value in existence, which is often ignored. Yet communicating with them will promote an understanding beyond that state of existence, one where the sharing of information can serve to make us listen to what they are saying — “what they love, fear, desire, avoid, hate and are intrigued by and treasure” as Roger Payne puts it [5]. This understanding can foster empathy and promote conservation on a scale never seen before.

And really, wouldn’t it make us feel less alone?

[1] The Audacious Project. “Project Ceti.” The Audacious Project, 2020. https://www.audaciousproject.org/grantees/project-ceti

[2]  Fisheries, NOAA. “Sperm Whale.” NOAA, January 30, 2023.   https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/sperm-whale

[3] Jacob Andreas,Gašper Beguš,Michael M. Bronstein,Roee Diamant,Denley Delaney,Shane Gero,Shafi Goldwasser,David F. Gruber,Sarah de Haas,Peter Malkin,Nikolay Pavlov,Roger Payne,Giovanni Petri,Daniela Rus,Pratyusha Sharma,Dan Tchernov,Pernille Tønnesen et al.2022. “Toward understanding the communication in sperm whales.” iScience.Volume 25, Issue 6 (Summer):https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004222006642

[4]Deep Learning AI. “Natural Language Processing (NLP) – A Complete Guide.” (NLP) [A Complete Guide], January 11, 2023. https://www.deeplearning.ai/resources/natural-language-processing

[5] Payne, Roger. “I Spent My Life Saving the Whales. Now They Might Save Us.” Time, June 5, 2023. https://time.com/6284884/whale-scientist-last-please-save-the-species/.

[6] Photograph by Gabriel Barathieu, distributed under CC BY-SA 2.0 license.