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

Ever wished you could understand what your cat is trying to tell you? A Chinese tech company is exploring whether it’s possible to translate those mysterious meows into human language using artificial intelligence.

Baidu, owner of China’s largest search engine, has filed a patent with China National Intellectual Property Administration proposing a system to convert animal vocalisations into human language, according to a patent document published this week.

Scientists have long attempted to decode animal communication, and Baidu’s patent represents the latest effort to leverage AI to do so.

The document says the system will collect animal data, including vocal sounds, behavioural patterns, and physiological signals, which will be preprocessed and merged before an AI-powered analysis designed to recognise the animal’s emotional state.

The emotional states would then be mapped to semantic meanings and translated into human language.

The system could allow “deeper emotional communication and understanding between animals and humans, improving the accuracy and efficiency of cross-species communication,” Baidu said in the patent document.

“There has been a lot of interest in the filing of our patent application,” a Baidu spokesperson said when asked how soon the company could turn the patent into a product. “Currently, it is still in the research phase.”

Baidu was among the first major Chinese companies to invest heavily in AI following the 2022 debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

It unveiled its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, last month, saying it matched the industry’s best in several benchmark tests. However, the Ernie chatbot has struggled to gain traction amid fierce competition.

Several efforts are underway outside China to try and interpret what animals want to convey.

International researchers at Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) have been using statistical analysis and AI since 2020 to understand how sperm whales communicate, while the Earth Species Project, a non-profit founded in 2017 whose backers include LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, is also trying to use AI to decode animal communication.

Local media reports about Baidu’s patent application sparked discussion on Chinese social media platforms late on Wednesday.

While some were excited about the possibility of eventually being better able to understand their pets, others were sceptical.

“While it sounds impressive, we’ll need to see how it performs in real-world applications,” commented a user on Weibo.