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submitted 4 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

Sperm whales communicate with each other using rhythmic sequences of clicks, called codas. It was previously thought that sperm whales had just 21 coda types. However, after studying almost 9,000 recordings, the Ceti researchers identified 156 distinct codas. They also noticed the basic building blocks of these codas which they describe as a "sperm whale phonetic alphabet" – much like phonemes, the units of sound in human language which combine to form words.

Pratyusha Sharma, a PhD student at MIT and lead author of the study, describes the "fine-grain changes" in vocalisations the AI identified. Each coda consists of between three and 40 rapid-fire clicks. The sperm whales were found to vary the overall speed, or the "tempo", of the codas, as well as to speed up and slow down during the delivery of a coda, in other words, making it "rubato". Sometimes they added an extra click at the end of a coda, akin, says Sharma, to "ornamentation" in music. These subtle variations, she says, suggest sperm whale vocalisations could carry a much richer amount of information than previously thought.

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[-] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 21 points 4 months ago

It bothered me too so I clicked on the highlighted link in the article and in that there are these tidbits.

The data collected has been processed using machine-learning algorithms to detect and classify clicks, with results due to be published in 2024.

And

More than 5,000 miles (8,000km) away, a group of artificial intelligence and natural language processing experts, cryptographers, linguists, marine biologists, robotic experts and underwater acousticians are also hoping to use AI – this time to decipher sperm whale conversation.

Emphasis mine

[-] runeko@programming.dev 6 points 4 months ago

I hope to master all of time and space ... but I don't have a plan nor any motivation to do so. Where's my article?!

[-] awesome_lowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)
[-] runeko@programming.dev 6 points 4 months ago

Drat, now I'm trapped in a web of my own prophecy. I should have seen that coming.

[-] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 months ago

I think that's a link to a different group. The study they link in the first article is more direct data analysis.

this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
264 points (96.5% liked)

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