Can artificial intelligence help us talk to our pets?

Author: Ma Lingshu

Reviewer: Huang Chengming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Can you accurately understand the meaning of your pet's barking? In the movie "Lassie", there is a clip about a pet dog named Lassie who found someone fell into a well and barked at his owner. The owner asked the dog what was wrong, but Lassie could only bark non-stop. Although this is just a movie, in real life, we do worry about not being able to understand the constant barking of our pets. Will this situation change in the future? Can the development of technology help us understand the meaning of our pets' barking?

To answer this question, we first need to know how pets communicate with us. There are roughly three ways for us to obtain information about pets. The first is the pet's cry; the second is the pet's body movements. Pets sometimes express information to us through their movements; the third is the pet's physiological characteristics, such as heart rate, breathing rate, etc. This third type can be obtained through the measurement of precision instruments.

It is obvious that the third type of information can be obtained through machines and artificial intelligence, but is it possible to understand the first two types of information through artificial intelligence?

Maybe we can change our thinking. We know that dogs can understand most of what their owners want to say through their voices and actions, especially those dogs that live with humans day and night. If we can figure out how pet dogs understand what humans say, and do reverse research, can we also communicate with dogs?

This is indeed possible. Experts are conducting research on canine brains and have found that the communication between dogs and their owners is complex and varied. The most amazing thing is that they can indeed "read" human body language. As we gain a deeper understanding of how pets understand humans, it is entirely possible that we can efficiently convey cooperation information to pets through body language, and even enable them to have smooth conversations with us humans.

In addition to body language, will it be possible for us to have normal conversations with pets through voice in the future? Will we be able to see scenes in cartoons - talking to pets just like talking to other humans - such as asking our animal friends: Have you eaten today? This seems unlikely at present.

But what if we have more advanced instruments and a more advanced language system in the future? At present, we only know that animals of the same species have their own specific language expressions, but perhaps we can break through this level of limitation and achieve a higher level of "dialogue"?

Such possibilities are still hidden behind a new era, and we urgently need a better understanding of language and animal behavior, as well as more tools that transcend the times. Perhaps, the day will come when we can communicate freely with our pets and even other animals. What do you think?