Amazon Report Predicts Pet Translation Devices By 2027 (cbslocal.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Devices that can talk to our pet dogs and cats could be less than 10 years away, according to a report Amazon commissioned that was co-authored by futurist William Higham. "Innovative products that succeed are based around genuine and major consumer needs," Higham wrote, noting the tremendous amounts already spent on our pets, and concluding, "Somebody is going to put this together." Amazon already sells one dubious device that converts human voices into meows using samples from 25 cats, according to the Guardian. (One reviewer who tested the device wrote that "the cat seems puzzled.") But Amazon's report also cites the work of Con Slobodchikoff, a professor emeritus in Northern Arizona University's biology department, who spent 30 years studying the behavior of prairie dogs. Slobodchikoff discovered prairie dogs have different words for colors and for species of predators, and is now already raising money to develop a translation device for pets.
Although Slobodchikoff concedes that "With cats I'm not sure what they'd have to say. A lot of times it might just be 'you idiot, just feed me and leave me alone.'"

Comments

Oblig Far Side

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Hey! Hey! Hey!

Re:Oblig Far Side

[Tablizer]

"Food food food!, Can I lick my balls now? Why can't I sniff human butts? Food food food! Can I lick my balls now? Why can't I sniff human butts? Do I smell a squirrel?"

Re:Obligatory

[Baron_Yam]

In fact, context and having even a limited understanding of the animal's instincts combined with personal experience with the specific pet in question would have to be better than reasonable expectations of the accuracy of any such device... by orders of magnitude.

Re:Obligatory

[Rei]

The one field where humans vastly outperform all other species is communication. Chimps can solve problems as well as children, and even parrots and corvids with their tiny brains can work out surprisingly complex problems. Various animals show all sorts of ability to conceptualize, plan, etc. But in terms of conveying complex thoughts about novel situations to other members, no species comes close to humans.

When my parrot says "I want up", he doesn't have any clue what "I", "Want", and "Up" means. He just knows that if he says that sound, I'll offer him a finger to stand on. And he only started saying it because I kept repeating it, and he likes making sounds; learning the benefit of making that sound came second. To him, "I want cracker" and "I want peanut" are two entirely different sounds; every phrase is learned as a whole. The total "vocabulary" he can maintain is quite limited. It's not out of some lack of problem solving / reasoning ability; he solves all sorts of complicated puzzle toys that I give him. He just doesn't grok complex communication. Some sort of "translator" isn't going to change his limitations. I already know what his basic sounds mean - I've been around him plenty to read his vocalizations and body language**. But real *communication* requires something more.

Facebook has been working on a rather interesting technology focused on using semi-ballistic photons imaging to yield something like a compact, real-time, super high-res MRI. Elon Musk's Neuralink has even broader ambitions. Things like these may actually some day yield better insights into what our pets are thinking than what they're capable of vocalizing. Our pets are reasoning, thinking, feeling beings. But they simply cannot, on their own, communicate to us about with the same level of depth as their internal processes encompass.

** Here's your "Amazon Parrot Translator":
  Repeated triple cluck: Baby amazon wants food (goes away with age).
  Idle trilling with varying pitch: Content, often associated with preening behavior.
  Deep, almost clicky trilling: Playtime. Watch your fingers.
  Loud or crackly repetitive sounds, repetitive beeps, or saying learned sounds randomly without clarity or intensity: Nearing bedtime, common in the evenings.
  Saying learned sounds with clarity and intensity: Wants you to take a learned action associated with it, or otherwise trying to "take part" socially.
  Crackly whine: uncomfortable, doesn't like this situation. Often associated with moving away from the thing that's making him uncomfortable
  Sharp isolated trill: Alarmed
  Continuous sound like a cross between a goose honking and a chicken clucking, with spasmic motions: hormonal / mating dance
  No noise or highly pitch modulated sounds, while fanning the tail feathers and pulsating the size of the pupils: Crazy mode. DO NOT TOUCH. Common around cages with the "hot" amazon breeds.

No translator needed.

Re:Obligatory

[Chrontius]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29

I think you will find you are absolutely wrong.

Before Pepperberg’s work with Alex, it was widely believed in the scientific community that a large primate brain was needed to handle complex problems related to language and understanding; birds were not considered to be intelligent, as their only common use of communication was mimicking and repeating sounds to interact with each other. However, Alex’s accomplishments supported the idea that birds may be able to reason on a basic level and use words creatively. Pepperberg wrote that Alex’s intelligence was on a level similar to dolphins and great apes. She also reported that Alex seemed to show the intelligence of a five-year-old human, in some respects, and he had not even reached his full potential by the time he died. She believed that the bird possessed the emotional level of a human two-year-old at the time of his death.

Alex’s last words to Pepperberg were: “You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.” These were the same words that he would say every night when Pepperberg left the lab.

(I can only hope my last words are as earnest.)

Alex was also able to coin terms to describe his experience - apple became the “ban-erry” because to him it apparently tasted like the combination of a banana and a cherry. Further, the damn bird seemed to me to be capable of sarcasm. (The way he would deliberately report incorrect results when he was fed up with an experiment is well-documented, and reminds me of the deadpan style of a couple people I know)

Timmy fell down the well!

[Tony Isaac]

What are we expecting, a large vocabulary that's consistent around the world?

My dog speaks mostly the "language" I taught her: bark once for "I want to go outside." Over time, this single bark became "I want (something)." I can tell the difference mainly by how she acts after the one bark. If he heads to the door, or to the food bowl, or to the water dish. I'm pretty sure this "one bark" wasn't her native language, she does it because I taught her that's what to do.

Of course, there are some sounds that are natural, like growling when alarmed, barking wildly when afraid, yelping when hurt, whimpering when begging. But I'm guessing that as we learn more about dogs, we'll find that there is a very limited vocabulary that dogs are capable of using.

Re:Timmy fell down the well!

[Areyoukiddingme]

Of course, there are some sounds that are natural, like growling when alarmed, barking wildly when afraid, yelping when hurt, whimpering when begging. But I'm guessing that as we learn more about dogs, we'll find that there is a very limited vocabulary that dogs are capable of using.

A very limited verbal vocabulary, certainly. And yes, heavily distorted by growing up in a human "pack' that really doesn't understand her properly. But hidden observation of wolves in the wild show that canids in general have a fairly large vocabulary. It's just mostly nonverbal. Which is why any product that attempts to "translate" a pet purely verbally is made of fail from the very start.

I kind of wanted to post this at the top level, in hopes of better moderation, but your last paragraph was too good of an opening.

Dogs, cats, even some of the larger rodents commonly kept as pets, all "speak" quite a bit nonverbally. Those nonverbal "words" are also more universal from pet to pet in different households. Your dog learned to bark as an attention signal, but "spoke" by moving to what she wanted. None of mine ever did it that way, because they were taught not to bark in the house. But I bet your dog and mine both expressed remorse in exactly the same body language. Dogs all know how to say "Sorry boss," and they all do it the same way wolves do. Every cat I've ever known could express disdain, at various levels of intensity, from the flicked ear to the jaw dropping yawn, body language they still share with the big cats. I'm told by people who've kept them that guinea pigs and fancy rats have specific preening behaviors that mean things, though I don't remember details since I never had a pet of either of those species myself.

Every animal "talks", but the parts of their brains that handle what language they have generally aren't wired to their vocal cords. Certainly not exclusively. Humans are so extremely verbal that they forget that they even have body language, and as the argument further up-thread demonstrates, when they remember, can't even agree on what it means. Meanwhile a cat can say more with her tail than some humans who call themselves poets can say in 64 couplets.

Re:understanding cats

[AmiMoJo]

I can't see how it could really work with cats. Cat communication is mostly non-verbal, so it would need a camera to look at them and good luck getting that to work with black cats. My cat is all black and it's really hard to get good photos of him with even a DSLR, let alone a phone camera.

Kittens do vocalize more than adults, but mostly to get the attention of their mother rather than communicate what they want. When they grow up the naturally stop using their voices, except when trying to intimidate other cats. Domesticated cats often learn to talk to humans because it's a very effective way to get a response, but they aren't really saying anything, just making a noise that causes their staff to pay attention. In other words it's little more than what a human communicates by ringing a bell to summon their servants.

To understand what the cat is feeling you need to look at it and observe its behaviour. Even then, they tend to communicate things like "I want to be fed" by simply going to the place where they are normally fed or sitting on your face until you get out of bed.