If you’re a pet owner, there has likely been at least one instance where you’ve looked at your dog or cat and thought, “I really wish I could understand you.” Maybe it’s when they wake you up at four in the morning jumping on your chest, meowing like the world is ending. Or maybe you just want to understand what those little chuffs mean when your dog grunts at you. Well, pretty soon, we could have AI that lets us talk to cats, and even talk to dogs.
There’s an app for that
One of the leading options at the moment is Meowtalk, a smartphone app which combines the power of machine learning with the sounds your cat makes. According to the app’s webpage, it’s the “#1 science-backed and AI-powered cat translator app.” However, it is worth noting that, as Scientific American points out, the only real study we have talking about the app’s accuracy is from the team members behind it.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from trying it yourself. But, this is just one way that companies are trying to capitalize on our desire to talk to our pets. Yes, it’s very clear that the sounds animals make are meant to convey some kind of meaning. And we’ve even seen instances where it looks like animals like humpback whales are trying to communicate with humans. We’ve also had success with animals using buttons to relay messages. But an AI that actually lets us talk to our cats like they’re people? That still seems a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it?
It’s not all make-believe
No matter what you think of it, though, there is some science to back it up. For instance, ethologists (a fancy title for scientists who study animal behavior) have broken down many of the noises that cats make into distinct categories. However, these categories also include a myriad of variations. This can be seen in any household that has multiple cats. For instance, my wife and I have three cats, and each of them responds to us in different ways. One even seems to replicate pigeon-like calls when happy.
But more than one company is looking to break into the field of understanding your cat’s speech patterns. Just last December, a Chinese company called Baidu filed a patent application for what a method designed to transform animal noises into human language. A spokesperson from the company told Reuters back in May that the system is still in the research phase.
Combined with the other attempts to decode the meaning behind our animals’ sounds, it won’t be too surprising when AI does let us talk to our cats. The only thing we have left to ask ourselves is whether we’re really ready to hear everything they have to say.
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