Orcas, commonly known as killer whales, have been successfully trained to imitate human speech.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, researchers from institutions in Germany, UK, Spain and Chile, describe how they carried out the latest research with Wikie, a 14-year-old female orca living in an aquarium in France. She had previously been trained to copy actions performed by another orca when given a human gesture.
After first brushing up Wikie's grasp of the "copy" command, she was trained to parrot three familiar orca sounds made by her three-year old calf Moana.
Wikie was then additionally exposed to five orca sounds she had never heard before, including noises resembling a creaking door and the blowing a raspberry.
Finally, Wikie was exposed to a human making three of the orca sounds, as well as six human sounds, including "hello", "Amy", "ah ha", "one, two" and "bye bye".
The embedded clip of the audio is pretty interesting. We've all heard birds imitating sounds but the article makes a point that only a fraction of animals have the neural and vocal apparatus to do this.
How long until your next call to customer service gets outsourced to these cetaceans?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:49PM (4 children)
Soon we'll find out that TMB's name isn't just for kicks! It is all starting to make sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:05PM (3 children)
He's not Woody Woodpecker's arch-nemesis.
Or the buzzard from those turn of the 20th century color children's books set against the southwestern desert?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:25PM
I'd go with the buzzards from The Jungle Book. They are a bit nasty until they realize a shared suffering, then they do a turnabout.
I'm just hopeful, but I won't hold my breath.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:26PM (1 child)
Daddy's favorite buzzard cartoon. [blogspot.com]
Still applicable over half a century later.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:39PM
But only when asked to pay taxes!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:13PM
There is now way French people would teach "hello", "one, two", or "bye bye" !
"Aujourd'hui", "vraisemblance" and "Cornichons", maybe...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:17PM
Day of the dolphin [imdb.com]
Classic plot: researchers teach dolphins to speak English. Dolphins get stolen by bad guys for evil intent. researchers try to rescue the dolphins.
Considering that Orcas are not whales but actually members of the Dolphin family it seems appropriate.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:35PM (5 children)
So if orcas can speak like people, but people can't learn to speak like orcas, who's the smart one now?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:45PM (2 children)
The humans who don't care about speaking orca and deport all the illegals too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:49PM
Stickler for law and order, are ya?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:13PM
Maybe the Orcas can build a wall. A great wall. A great, great, beautiful wall. The best wall. And believe me, I know my walls. Trust me.
A wall around all the ocean shores of the world. And make the humans pay for it. I promise.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by acid andy on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:46PM
Yeah, especially since the orcas and many other animals like our dogs seem to pick up basic meanings for individual words pretty easily! OK, in TFA it's just imitation but they did mention them responding to a "copy" command and dogs sure know what to expect when someone says "walkies"!
It probably deserves to be another article, but there's a study underway to try to understand crows' cawing [phys.org]. How cool would it be to get to the point where we fully understand every sound and gesture from another species? I think this definitely deserves a lot of further study.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:49PM
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:49PM (1 child)
What's this sandpaper feel like?
"Ruff!"
What's that on top of that house?
"Woof!" *
Who fed you this morning, him or her?
"rrrrrrrrr" *
What's this on the tree here?
"Bark! Bark!"
Good boy.
-----
* Allowing for English being a second language for a creature who is additionally of a different species than most English speakers, the odd pronunciations of "roof" and "her" are not unexpected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:06PM
Human: Who is the greatest baseball player of all time?
Dog: Ruth. Ruth.[1]
[long pause]
Dog: Uhh, Joe DiMaggio?
[1] Babe Ruth was the white Josh Gibson.
If it hadn't been for segregation, the record books would look very different.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:09PM (7 children)
What? You're saying that customer service calls aren't already outsourced to orcas or other animals that can mimic human speech?
Then how would you explain customer service inability to barely comprehend let alone actually solve a problem?
The quality of most customer service calls is completely unsuitable for my intended porpoises.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:17PM
That's a good point! I heard they were going to run for president but the mice and dolphins wanted Trump.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:45PM
Great. Telemarketing cetaceans.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:52PM (1 child)
Support: can you please give me your address?
Me: ..... .... .... Miami .... ....
Support: Miami, can you spell that please?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:04PM
T. H. A. T. And don't call me "Mammy"!
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:56PM (1 child)
You have intents on porpoises? I would not advertise this freely on the internet, you may be in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act [noaa.gov].
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:14PM
"intended" usually refers to your future spouse
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:17PM
With the fact that most American's simply accept if the person on the hotline can barely speak their language.
I've once heard in radio that German hotlines don't have that problem simply because German customers would not accept it.
(Score: 2) by IndigoFreak on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:05PM (2 children)
No one else is commenting on this. But they don't sound anything like human words. I wouldn't really expect them to either.
But honestly, saying bye-bye and the orca making 2 fart noises after it is not imitation in any meaningful sense. Congratulations, you make a sound and the whale makes a sound. This is very disappointing and i fail to see how it is news worthy or any leap forward scientifically.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:17PM
It isn't that they can accurately portray human speech, but they are making a very good approximation. It shows higher vocal intelligence than we thought they were capable of. I really wouldn't call the orca speech "fart noises" as I can hear the inflections. If I didn't know what words they were trying to say I would have a hard time guessing, but play clips of a few words and it becomes obvious they are trying to replicate human speech.
Killjoy
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday January 31 2018, @10:23PM
The fart noise was the "raspberry" sound they were taught previously. Note they at least do it twice when responding to a two word phrase and some of the repeat attempts do sound a lot more accurate than that.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday February 01 2018, @02:20AM
"Hello, thank you for calling Comcast Xfinity support. Can I get your -- wait, what kind of penguins do I like? I tend to find the ones from the more temperate zones to be tastierimeanfriendlier!"
"Yeeesss, sir, I'll transfer you to a human, just a moment ... dammit."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:30AM
That accent did sound pretty strange.