Can AI Talk to Whales? Decoding Whale Songs with AI and Planet Wild Adventures

Overview

Be Smart investigates how AI can help us understand the sonic world of whales, moving beyond what we see to what we hear. The episode traces the history of whale song research, introduces the idea that whale communication may be a language in the making, and shows how drones, hydrophones, and spectrograms are used to study vocalizations from blue and humpback whales. Through conversations with researchers and AI innovators, the video weighs the potential and limits of teaching machines to interpret whale language, and frames the bigger question of whether we should try to talk back.

The piece also previews a Planet Wild drone mission that demonstrates front-line technology in the field. The interviewees emphasize listening and understanding the whales’ perspective as the guiding principle for any future interaction.

Introduction

The episode opens with a bold premise: to truly understand a whale, we must focus on sound. Whales inhabit a world of acoustic communication, and new technology including artificial intelligence is opening pathways to decode this sonic language. The host interviews whale scientists, animal communication experts, and AI researchers to explore whether AI can bridge the gap between human and whale communication.

From Whale Songs to Language Models

The discussion tracks the arc from early underwater recordings in the 1950s to a modern wave of AI-enabled analysis. The speakers recount the discovery that humpback songs are structured and dialectal, and they highlight the historical threat to whale populations driven by whaling. These stories set the stage for considering AI as a tool to quantify patterns across thousands or millions of whale sounds, helping researchers determine whether whale vocalizations meet some criteria of language such as vocabularies, novelty, and referential meaning.

Umveld and the Whale Perspective

The concept of umveld, the self-perceived world of an animal, is introduced to frame the problem of understanding whale perception. Experts emphasize that underwater sound is the primary sense for whales, and we must adapt our human biases about perception when interpreting acoustic data. This section also explains spectrograms as visual representations of sound, illustrating how blue and other whale vocalizations differ in form and function.

Technology and Data for Whale Communication

Researchers discuss how advanced data collection and AI pattern recognition are transforming whale science. The use of fluke photography for individual identification shows how AI can enhance field biology, while the broader goal is to gather enough multi-modal data—what the whale is doing, who is present, and how responses unfold—to glean potential meanings behind vocal patterns. The conversation highlights the contrast between hardware capabilities (brains and vocal apparatus) and software (patterns, contexts, and meanings) in decoding whale language.

AI in Whale Research: Opportunities and Limits

The Earth Species Project and other groups are building AI systems that can process enormous audio datasets, translate acoustic information into mathematical representations, and search for patterns beyond human reach. Yet the experts argue that pattern recognition alone does not equate to understanding meaning. They stress that far more data—with context about behavior and ecological interactions—is required to train AI models that can credibly interpret whale communication. The discussion also covers historical milestones, such as the 2017 breakthrough in neural networks, and explains why language in non-human species may differ fundamentally from human language.

Ethical Considerations: Should We Talk to Whales?

Ethical questions arise about whether decoding whale language should lead to active attempts to communicate or intervene in their world. Some speakers express excitement about potential conservation benefits, while others warn against anthropomorphizing or altering wild whale behavior. The central message is that listening and learning from whales should guide any future interactions, not simply satisfying human curiosity.

The Path Forward

The episode concludes with reflections on human listening as a core value for ocean stewardship. Even as AI promises new capabilities, the speakers urge us to consider whether we should pursue whale-to-human communication and, if so, how to do it responsibly. The host teases a Planet Wild video about deploying a camera drone on a blue whale, inviting viewers to see technology in action while continuing the conversation about the ethics and science of talking to whales.