Google Is Building a Dolphin Translator, so Start Thinking of Interesting Questions

Talking to dolphins before GTA 6?! What is this timeline?!

Google is officially trying to build a dolphin translator. And weirdly enough, it's not as ridiculous as it sounds.

For decades, scientists have been trying to crack the code of dolphin chatter. You know, those whistles, clicks, and occasional aquatic sass? Well, now, with the help of Google's AI wizardry and a ton of underwater recordings from the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP), we might finally be able to answer one of humanity's weirdest questions: Do dolphins have a language?

And if they do, can we learn it? And if we can, can I have a dolphin buddy?

Enter DolphinGemma—a brand-new AI model built on Google's Gemma framework (basically a smaller sibling of their fancy Gemini models). Trained on decades of dolphin audio, this tool listens to dolphin sounds, breaks them down using SoundStream (an audio tech that tokenizes sound), and then tries to predict what sound would come next. Kind of like how ChatGPT predicts words—except instead of typing "what's up," it's more like whistle-click-squawk.

Why does this matter? Because we've seen signs that dolphins might use names, throw shade, and even coordinate with each other in complex ways. WDP has already found that dolphins produce unique "signature whistles" (which might be dolphin for "Hey Susan, over here!"), and now AI could help us find patterns that we humans could never spot on our own.

The cherry on top? It all runs on a Pixel phone. No joke. WDP has been using Pixel-based underwater gear for years (shoutout to the Georgia Tech team behind the CHAT device), and this summer they're upgrading to the Pixel 9 to run DolphinGemma in the field. So yeah, dolphins are getting their own AI assistant.

Will this model let us sit down with a dolphin and discuss our feelings? Probably not. But could it be the beginning of basic, meaningful interspecies communication? Honestly… maybe. That's wild.

And since DolphinGemma is open source, other researchers around the world will be able to use it and even adapt it for other marine mammals. Imagine training it on orcas. Or belugas. Or even those freaky deep-sea creatures we barely understand.

Bottom line: This is science fiction slowly becoming science fact, and it's happening because of a collaboration between field scientists, cutting-edge AI, and a phone you can buy at Best Buy.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend the next few hours coming up with interesting questions I want to ask a dolphin.