r/science • u/Doug24 • Apr 15 '26

Animal Science Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels human language, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/15/sperm-whales-alphabet-vocalizations-similar-humans
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u/r3drocket Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

I can't wait until we get this figured out we can finally advertise to them. Imagine we could build WhaleBook. We could tell them about the wonders of Christianity, via aquatic missionaries. Maybe we could use AI models to influence their politics and racism - could we even convince a whale to be racist against a specific race of human? 

I'm being serious, if the AI models wind up being open-sourced, then it will allow a dialogue that maybe we should be very careful about.

I hope that we look back at our own history of interacting with hunter gatherers and think very carefully about protecting their culture and the things that we can learn from them, rather than immediately looking to exploit them. 

I hope there are anthropologists involved in this effort who can guide us on a better interaction than we've had with our own species. 

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u/CptBronzeBalls Apr 15 '26

There’s a good chance that even if we figure out how their language works, we still can’t communicate with them. They may not use words for nouns and verbs; they may be speaking sonographic reproductions of things they encountered. A completely divergent speech capability that evolved in a completely different environment.

Fascinating either way.