“Researchers are building an AI system that they hope will, one day, allow humans to understand the many languages that animals use to communicate with one another,” reports Axios:
NatureLM is an AI language model that can already identify the species of animal speaking, as well as other information including the approximate age of the animal and whether it is indicating distress or play. Created by Earth Species Project, NatureLM has even shown potential in identifying the dialogue of species the system has never encountered before. NatureLM is trained on a mix of human language, environmental sounds and other data….
Researchers know, for example, that birds make different sounds when they are singing songs as compared to sounding a warning call. They also have determined that many species have individual names for one another and some, like prairie dogs, have a system of nouns and adjectives to describe predators.
Over 700 languages are spoken in India, the world’s most populous country. Artificial intelligence is being used to developed chatbots for dozens of those languages. So computer programs and devices will soon communicate in humanlike prose in many of those languages.
Kenyan farmers are using artificial intelligence to greatly increase crop yields.
Artificial intelligence is advancing in other areas as well. Researchers have also developed robots to pick cotton. That may eliminate the need for cotton farmers to buy mechanical harvesters that cost $1 million and weigh 30 tons, compressing soil and thus sometimes harming soil health.
Farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. A robot is saving Dutch tulip fields by quickly detecting diseased tulips before the disease can spread.
Robots are also being use for food preparation, such as the salad-making robot used by the Sweetgreen restaurant chain. Robot waiters are increasingly being used in South Korean restaurants, which are facing a labor shortage.
Artificial intelligence is detecting cases of prostate cancer and breast cancer that radiologists overlook.
