Pet owners already talk to their furry friends, offering enthusiastic affirmations and even personal secrets. But what if our pets could talk back?
In ten years, they just might.
According to a report by Independent, Amazon recently announced that a pet translator might not be too far off. The tech giant revealed that Con Slobodchikoff, a Northern Arizona University professor, is raising money for a dog and cat translation device. The tool would use artificial intelligence to interpret the noises and body language of domestic animals.
“So many people would dearly love to talk to their dog or cat — or at least find out what they are trying to communicate,” Slobodchikoff said in a statement to The Guardian.
The 4.6 million households that own dogs in the U.S. might have more luck than those who own cats. Slobodchikoff told The Guardian that canine behavior is simply more enticing to interpret.
“A lot of people talk to their dogs and share their innermost secrets,” he said. “With cats, I’m not sure what they’d have to say. A lot of times it might just be ‘you idiot, just feed me and leave me.'”
Slobodchikoff is a leading scholar on animal communication. His book, “Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals,” explores the unique ways in which animals communicate with each other. His AI translation technology is the next step in his studies. Independent reports that he has tested this interpretation method on prairie dogs, interpreting their verbal calls. He found that the critters had different signals to identify predators and even colors.
But not all animal scholars are on board with decoding Fido’s barks. The Guardian reports that Juliane Kaminski, a psychologist at Portsmouth University who studies the communication between humans and dogs, does not believe that we can equate animal language with human language.
“We would not describe dogs’ forms of communication as language in the scientific sense,” she told The Guardian. [But,] they do give out rudimentary signals of what they want and how they’re feeling.”
Despite any skepticism, Amazon consumer futurist William Higham is certain that there will be a market for a product like this, since the consumer demand for pet products is always there.
“The amount of money now spent on pets — they are becoming fur babies to so many people –means there is huge consumer demand for this,” he said in a statement to Independent. “Somebody is going to put this together.”
