Dolittle AI: Now you can chat with your pets in real time, without missing a woof

People, especially those living alone, talk to their pets as much as others do to their friends or family. While these conversations might seem one-sided to many, only pet owners will realize the true essence of these meaningful interactions. Now, what if we tell you that you can talk to your pets — not through distinctive body language or vocalization, but in the human tongue? Sounds impossible? Wait till you learn more about how China has been cooking up an Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to turn this fantasy into an accessible reality.

As per a report by Sky News, Baidu, a Chinese company, has filed a patent with the China National Intellectual Property Administration for an AI system that can easily translate animal vocalization into human speech. The report further claims that the groundbreaking AI system will collect animal data like their vocal sounds, behavioral traits, and physiological signals to understand their emotional state. Later, these data will be analyzed and linked to semantic meanings and decoded into human language. The trailblazing AI technology is still in its research stage, but holds great promise for the future. Moreover, a spokesperson of Baidu has apparently revealed that many have shown interest in the patent filed by the company.

Needless to say, humans have always been very fascinated with decoding animal language, but only with recent scientific and technological advancements have we moved closer to this potential avenue of communication. For instance, Stella, a 3-year-old dog from Chicago, made headlines for her ability to speak, thanks to her owner, Christina Hunger, a speech-language pathologist, who goes by @hunger4words on Instagram. Countless videos of Stella communicating her thoughts using a homemade device have catapulted her into the social media spotlight. It all began when Hunger realized that her puppy's mode of communication was very similar to how kids interact before learning to speak. 

The homemade device has a whole bunch of buttons, each representing a word like "outside", "eat", etc. Whenever Stella wants to communicate something, she presses the corresponding buttons, and Hunger tries to interpret her emotions. Using the same strategy she used with kids, the dog owner began teaching Stella to associate an action with a word, and about a month into their training, the puppy used her first word. "She definitely says 'outside' the most. She absolutely loves being outside," Hunger revealed in an interview with CNN. At present, Stella's vocabulary has significantly grown to include 48 words and a variety of phrases that even help her express emotions like "love" and "mad." 

Although humans have been communicating with their pets through non-verbal means for decades, if the aforementioned Chinese technology comes into action, then it will only strengthen their bond, fostering higher levels of understanding and trust between them. As defined by the University of Saskatchewan, "IIC (intuitive interspecies communication) presents as a detailed, non-verbal, and non-physical form of communication between humans and other animals," which includes not only the mutual exchange of feelings but also spontaneous feelings and physical sensations like smell, taste, sound, and mental images.