Skip to main content

Scientists have recorded two dolphins having a chat

dolphins natural language processing 7420254  pair of swimming in water
Percent/123RF
If you think the idea of dolphins chatting excitedly about the new features on the next iPhone sounds far-fetched, you’d be absolutely right. It’s an absurd suggestion.

But how about the popular marine mammal communicating in a similar way to humans, pausing to let the other one “speak” during a “conversation”? Well, scientists in Russia believe they’ve witnessed it happening.

While we’ve long known that dolphins have the ability to communicate among their group, the extent of that skill is still being uncovered, with the latest findings coming from scientists at the Karadag Nature Reserve in Feodosia, Russia.

The research, published recently in the St. Petersburg Polytechnical University Journal, suggests the dolphins’ various clicks and whistles allow them to exchange information in a manner than resembles the way humans communicate.

As part of their research, the scientists took a close look at how two Black Sea bottlenose dolphins communicated with each other. Before long, they noticed the pair were actually pausing to allow the other one to “speak,” similar to how humans converse.

“The analysis of [sounds] registered in our experiments showed that the dolphins took turns in producing [words and phrases] and did not interrupt each other, which gives reason to believe that each of the dolphins listened to the other’s pulses before producing its own,” the team said in its report. “Essentially, this exchange resembles a conversation between two people. The fundamental difference between the dolphin exchange of information and the human conversation is in the characteristics of the acoustic signals of their spoken language.”

The report added, “This language exhibits all the design features present in the human spoken language, [indicating] a high level of intelligence and consciousness in dolphins … their language can be ostensibly considered a highly developed spoken language, akin to the human language.”

The researchers admitted they had no idea what the dolphins were talking about, though if the resemblance to human interaction extends further it’d be nice to think their conversations focused on everyday topics such as the weather or what’s currently hot on Netflix.

Australian research conducted in 2007 found that dolphins use nearly 200 different whistle sounds while communicating, with groups of sounds linked to specific activities such as feeding, resting, socializing, and traveling. And in the U.K. scientists said the aquatic animal even appeared to “speak” in different dialects according to where they come from. Clearly there is still much to learn about this talkative creature.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more