AI Is Helping to Decode Animals' Speech. Will It Also Let Us Talk with Them?

tl;dr: Recent research shows animal communication is more sophisticated than previously thought. Bonobos combine calls in multiple ways to create complex phrases with non-trivial compositionality (like human idioms). Sperm whales have their own "phonetic alphabet" with vowel-like patterns and diphthong-like frequency changes. Japanese tits and chimps show compositional communication.

AI tools from projects like Earth Species Project and CETI are helping decode these patterns and may eventually enable two-way communication with animals. While some uniquely human language features (displacement, productivity, recursion) haven't been conclusively found in animals yet, the gap between human and animal communication appears to be narrowing.

Key finding: Animals can create meanings that can't be determined from individual calls alone - similar to human idioms.