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Have you ever wished you could comprehend what your cat is trying to communicate? A Chinese technology startup is testing if artificial intelligence can convert those enigmatic meows into human language.
According to a patent document published this week, Baidu, the owner of China's largest search engine, has filed a patent with the China National Intellectual Property Administration for a system that converts animal vocalisations into human language.
Scientists have long sought to interpret animal communication, and Baidu's patent is the latest attempt to use AI to accomplish it.
According to the paper, the system would collect animal data such as vocal sounds, behavioral patterns, and physiological signs, which will then be preprocessed and integrated before being subjected to an AI-powered analysis to determine the animal's emotional state.
The emotional states would subsequently be assigned semantic interpretations and translated into human language.
The method might enable "deeper emotional communication and understanding between animals and humans, improving the accuracy and efficiency of cross-species communication," according to Baidu's patent paperwork.
"There has been a lot of interest in the filing of our patent application," a Baidu spokeswoman said when asked how fast the business might transform the patent into a product. "Currently, it is still in the research phase."
Baidu was one of the first big Chinese corporations to make significant investments in AI after OpenAI's ChatGPT debuted in 2022.
It introduced its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, last month, claiming that it outperformed the industry standard in multiple benchmark tests. Despite the heavy competition, the Ernie chatbot has unable to acquire momentum.
Outside of China, a variety of initiatives are being made to decipher what animals are trying to communicate.
Since 2020, international researchers at Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) have used statistical analysis and AI to understand how sperm whales communicate, while the Earth Species Project, a non-profit founded in 2017 and funded by LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, is also attempting to use AI to decode animal communication.
Local media coverage of Baidu's patent filing spurred discussion on Chinese social media platforms late Wednesday.
While some were thrilled at the prospect of potentially being able to better comprehend their dogs, others were skeptical.
"While it sounds impressive, we'll need to see how it performs in real-world applications," a Weibo user said.
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