'Hey Bill Nye, Why Don't Computers Allow Us to Talk Directly to Animals?' #TuesdaysWithBill

Hey Bill Nye, Why Don't Computers Allow Us to Talk Directly to Animals?
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Computers are great a decoding data and recognizing patterns, so might animal communication contain patterns which could be decoded, and then translated into human language? Animals certainly have an interior life of some kind, confirms Bill Nye, who has observed dogs and primates on various occasions. But the extent to which animal communication is as complex — as intentional — as human language is in doubt.

There appears to be a spectrum of intelligence among animals, including humans, but there is precious little evidence that animals understand complex concepts like existence, the self, time, or mathematics. So were to translate animal communication, it might turn out something like the dog in Pixar's film Up, who hilariously brings people's attention to any nearby squirrel. A funny premise for comedy, but a rather vexing one for stimulating conversation.

Of the emotional life of animals, however, there can be do doubt. When a primate dies, for example, the community it belonged to mourns visibly. In this reply to a Big Think fan, Bill Nye wonders whether a lack of linguistic concepts — memory, longing, death, afterlife, etc. — naturally shortens the mourning period animals perform. Ultimately when it comes to communicating with animals, we may not need to translate their communicative performances into language. They already contain meaning that we understand.
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BILL NYE:

Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.

In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.

While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”

Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.
Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.

Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Hassa: Hey Bill. I’m a big fan of your work. This is Hassa from Tunisia. I’m at the University of Freiburg in Germany. My question for you today is how can it be that human beings still can’t communicate with animals? I mean we have powerful computers by now. Isn’t it just easier to just record a lot of data, let the computers look for a pattern and play them back and it allows the responses. Imagine all the implications. Animals can become better tools for us or even closer friends. And can even ask them what their perspective of life is. I hope you answer my question. Have a nice day.

Bill Nye: Hello, hello. Hassick? Did I pronounce it correctly? I’m doing my best. I only heard it once and the sound is not too good. Hassick, greetings. Thank you for your question. Can we communicate with animals better than we do now. Well I’ve spent a lot of time with dogs and I really have a sense of what...

[Camv]

"Tarzan talks to his animal people" -Bill Nye

[Kanglar]

Animals don't have language like us, but we can still communicate with them on their level.

[Rxu]

Im surprised he didnt mention Koko the gorilla. She is amazing and can sign a lot of words and communicate better than any other animal ive heard of. She has conversations with her teacher and talks about wanting to find a mate and have kids.

[brucecook]

We have established communication with other animals. We have taught english sign language with quite a few gorillas since it was first taught to the late and famous gorilla "KOKO", and even taught KOKO her mortality and she responded that she understood that one day she would die and rot.

[QuantumYnoodles]

Quote of the year "The answer is definitely maybe."

[susanb]

i think bill missed the point here. the question isnt whether we can elevate animal language to human language but whether we as humans can access language on the animal level, with the assistance of computers

[anthonyc]

I wonder If Bill Nye ever met with Harambe.

[SudoProxy]

Well the first thing to ask is do animals speak their own language that can be translated to English? Words aren't just a means of transmitting ideas from one mind to another, they *are* ideas themselves.

We've even see this in humans. There are cases where people who were born deaf in primitive tribes, who never learned sign language until these tribes began trading and communicating with neighboring civilized cities. These deaf people then learned sign language in their adulthood. Once they had a good grasp of communicating they were asked to describe their life before learning sign. They couldn't. It was like they never really existed before they learned "words". It seems that part of how we perceive the world is through words, terminologies and ideas. Without these it would seem that humans can still function in the world, form bonds and cooperate, but events wont have the same impactful meaning had we had words to codify them with.

If animals are the same way then the answer to the question is simple, animals simply have no "thoughts" to translate, not in ways us humans would appreciate anyways.

I suppose the simplest example I could give is that a normal person would have a completely different experience walking through a botanical garden than a botanist.

[ebryant]

Every one speaks of apes but what about dolphins and whales. Both have hugely developed communication patterns. In the documentary Black Fish it is noted that Orcas from different pods communicate in different dialects. That is one of the many problems in keeping them at Sea World, they don't speak the same language which makes bonding and forming a new pod so difficult. We starve the whales to get them to do tricks but that only goes so far. Maybe that is why other animals do not reproduce in captivity. We have thrown different tribes together and expected them to 'get it on'. It's like their animals not damn filthy humans.

[mindexpandingknowledge]

20 years ago I was in East Congo Kivu region and personally witnessed gorillas using primitive sign language with villagers. They communicate simple things such as "I'm hungry, I'm happy to see you, come play". Very fascinating creatures. You can see them sometimes just sitting there lost in thoughts.

[wireditvideo]

I had someone close to me who's grandfather passed and was astounded at how quickly she grieved, accepted, and moved on as if nothing had happened. No epiphanies were had, no pondering as to her place in the world, no deep insight was gained after time spent looking into the inevitability that death holds for us all. Nothing.
And she was happy as a clam a few days later.
I can get behind this theory one-hundred percent.

[keBvinYT]

I think he's onto something there.
Like he said, couldn't we just gather and record different animal noises, store it on a computer, program the computer to do comparative analysis and pattern recognition, and use it to translate the noises our pets make?

OMG I just have a great idea for an app. LOL.

[ZennExile]

Bill, yer smarter than that. Animals don't have time, or any need, to contemplate the Universe. They have no down time. Elephants hold funerals, and revisit grave sites as they migrate. And Bonobos have turned aggression into a sexual game.

Keep in mind, Humans don't naturally develop spoken language. Humans with no down time, don't contemplate the Universe. Humans with no need to perform a mental function, simply do not form that mental function.

Humans, raised in the wild, are wild animals.

The only difference between animals and people, is we had to develop technology to survive because our physical adaptations failed us time and again throughout history. Every time our species has been pushed to extinction we have developed technology to thwart nature.

One of our greatest failings as a species, is our inability to accept that we are not special. You should really avoid perpetuating human ego.

[Mechaghostman]

Cetaceans, such as dolphins and whales, may have a language as complex or perhaps even more complex than that of humans. We're still working on trying to communicate with them, and computers may aid us in that. The non-human primates have the ability to use sign language, but not the ability to use syntax like humans so they don't have the ability to use language, but rather use signaling cues with human words. Parrots have about the same capability of understanding the human language as say a chimp or gorilla does, only they can actually speak it. Dogs have the ability to communicate their emotions with us through signaling cues like barking, growling, wagging their tail, whimpering, etc. So I don't think we'll ever truly be able to have a conversation with an animal via human language. If we invent a computer that hooks into a dog's brain or something that allows that to happen, then we'd be talking to the computer and not the dog.

[joshy]

"Hey Bill Nye, Why Don't Computers Allow us to Talk Directly to "Maybe"

[razak]

I came to this video from "Hey Bill Nye, "Are You For or Against Fracking?"

[troyray]

Have I been pronouncing zebra wrong all these years? Is it really zeh-bruh and not zee-bruh?

[BrianMcInnis]

Ah, they do. You're doing it right now, dude. I'm doing it right now.

[arikaGME]

I’m a professional dog groomer. I would bet that the majority of my clients would need to be censored when I clip their nails.

[StubbornDustin]

I feel like 'ol Bill might have been high with this one. "chimps don't have a periodic table... did you see that one Disney movie? It would sound cool in German! You know who talks to animals? Tarzan! Will we ever talk to animals? ...I don't know."