Four questions. (Summarized at the bottom.)
The article leaves a few things unclear that I’d be interested in clearing up for myself, and probably others also. I’m asking this on November 19th 2024, about 12 hours after this article was published.
First, it is not clear how long ago this exchange took place. It seems to be almost identical to a Whale-Human interaction that hit global media several months ago (though not last year, I think), before some AI advances hit (again, I THINK), in which pre-recorded whalesong was played back underwater, and was responded to by a whale, which came to investigate. Followed by, what was reported to be a 20 minute, or so, conversation between scientists and the whale. AI was mentioned in those older articles also, but was not emphasized like it seems to be in this article, as were any potential alien (non Karen taren non-Tarin Tara Taran languages.
Another thing left unclear in this article is the question, do we (scientists) know what we were talking about with the whale? In the older news stories, it was mentioned that we didn’t have ba clear idea what we were talking about about, or if it even made any sense to the whale, as we were mostly playingback one side of recorded whales communicating, in which we only had the slightest indication of what they were talking about with each other. Is that the case here? Or has this been a step forward, in which we think we know more about what we were discussing?
Third, did we learn anything new about the whales, their environment, or what they value because of information the whale chose to share with us, or was everything learned due to analysis of the exchange that only helps us understand a little more about the “language”. Not any information exchanged using the language.
Fourth, is there any indication that the whale learned anything about us during the exchange? Any change in this specific whale’s actions, it’s pod, humpbacks in general, or even other types of whale?
So in summery:
1) How old/new is this news, when did it take place?
2) Do we know what we were discussing? Or was this the equivalent of a mockingbird and a lyrbird mimicking each other? Without much more than recognition of the other being exchanged?
3) Did we learn anything other than the structures of phrases, ‘words’, or sentences from the exchange? Did the whale tell us, or TRY to tell us, anything we didn’t already know?
4) Is there any indication that the whale learned anything about humans from the exchange?
Thank you for your time and attention,
– James
