Sometimes, no matter how much we love our dog, we find it difficult to understand what he is trying to tell us. An almost identical growl can mean that he is happy or afraid. Their body language when they jump or wag their tail can also be confusing. Then what should we do? At this point, we have no choice but to interpret it in our own way. However, in the future we could have much more efficient tools. For example, he Artificial Intelligence Algorithm That Can Translate Dog Barks which has just been presented by a group of scientists from University of Michigan.
This algorithm will not allow us to have human conversations with our dogs. On the other hand, he can translate the bark and interpret the message. For example, it tells us whether they are happy, sad or scared. There are several words that can be extracted. Rather, it’s about emotions. But this does not make it any less useful or interesting.
It is important to emphasize that the study expects Expert review. This means that until scientists not involved in the study confirm that everything is correct, we should take the results with a grain of salt. For now, let’s keep in mind that in the future we may be able to talk to our dogs. At least in some sense.
Communicate with animals through AI
Communicating with animals through AI may seem like something out of science fiction. In fact, we’ve seen this for years in movies and TV shows like Seaquest, where one of the main characters was Darwin, a dolphin who could talk to his human companions. He, of course, could not speak. However, thanks to a futuristic artificial intelligence algorithm, its whistles and clicks could be translated into words. Thus, scientists took advantage of dolphins’ known intelligence to use Darwin as a wise advisor.
Many real scientists have speculated about the possibility of making this a reality thanks to artificial intelligence. More than a consulting dolphin, the ability to talk to pets such as cats and dogs. For this reason, scientists at the University of Michigan wanted to start by translating barks.
Translate barking thanks to human speech
These scientists took part in the development of the artificial intelligence algorithm 74 dogs of different breedsalthough about half of them Chihuahua.
Researchers recorded sounds made by animals in forced situations to trigger specific emotions. For example, researchers played with them or pretended to harm their human companions.
Thus, it was possible to identify 14 different types of barks, growls, howls and moans, with positive, negative or neutral connotations. These will be translated into emotions rather than specific words, but perhaps in the future phrases can be used to make the image more realistic. For example, “I’m sad” as a translation of a howl indicating sadness.
The most interesting thing about this artificial intelligence algorithm is that it was pre-trained on recordings of human speech. This means that human conversation data and its meaning have been inputted so that the AI can link messages and vocalizations. They then practiced using the dog sounds recorded in the first phase of the study. Finally, random dog recordings were introduced to see if the machine could translate the barks. Interestingly, when the algorithm was pre-trained on human speech, the success rate was 62.2%, which in certain types of vocalizations even amounted to more than 90%. On the other hand, without prior human training, the likelihood of success was much lower.
AI for barking translation and breed identification
Another interesting fact about this study is that in addition to translating barks, the algorithm was able to identify dog breeds with a 75% success rate. Apparently everyone has his own accent.
Until the study is peer reviewed, we cannot be sure of these results. But for now they are interesting enough to talk about. If confirmed, this AI will be a great revolution.
Source: Hiper Textual
