China's Baidu looks to patent AI system to decipher animal sounds

By Liam Mo and Brenda Goh

BEIJING (Reuters) -Ever wished you could recognize what your feline is trying to archer you? A Chinese tech institution is exploring whether it's imaginable to construe those mysterious meows into quality connection utilizing artificial intelligence.

Baidu, proprietor of China's largest hunt engine, has filed a patent with China National Intellectual Property Administration proposing a strategy to person carnal vocalisations into quality language, according to a patent papers published this week.

Scientists person agelong attempted to decode carnal communication, and Baidu's patent represents the latest effort to leverage AI to bash so.

The papers says the strategy volition cod carnal data, including vocal sounds, behavioural patterns, and physiological signals, which volition beryllium preprocessed and merged earlier an AI-powered investigation designed to recognise the animal's affectional state.

The affectional states would past beryllium mapped to semantic meanings and translated into quality language.

The strategy could let "deeper affectional connection and knowing betwixt animals and humans, improving the accuracy and ratio of cross-species communication," Baidu said successful the patent document.

"There has been a batch of involvement successful the filing of our patent application," a Baidu spokesperson said erstwhile asked however soon the institution could crook the patent into a product. "Currently, it is inactive successful the probe phase."

Baidu was among the archetypal large Chinese companies to put heavy successful AI pursuing the 2022 debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

It unveiled its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, past month, saying it matched the industry's champion successful respective benchmark tests. However, the Ernie chatbot has struggled to summation traction amid fierce competition.

A fig of efforts are underway extracurricular China to effort and construe what animals privation to convey.

International researchers astatine Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) person been utilizing statistical investigation and AI since 2020 to recognize however sperm whales communicate, portion the Earth Species Project, a non-profit founded successful 2017 whose backers see LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, is besides trying to usage AI to decode carnal communication.

Local media reports astir Baidu's patent exertion sparked treatment connected Chinese societal media platforms precocious connected Wednesday.

While immoderate were excited astir the anticipation of yet being amended capable to recognize their pets, others were sceptical.

"While it sounds impressive, we'll request to spot however it performs successful real-world applications," commented a idiosyncratic connected Weibo.

(Reporting by Liam Mo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kate Mayberry)