AI translates animal sounds to help people understand barking dogs

Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), what seemed like something that only appeared in movies and that humans could understand animal sounds may soon become a reality.

This tool uses AI to analyze the sound of a dog barking and determine the dog's breed, emotions, and even its intentions. This information will be translated into English to help dog owners understand their wishes.

AI translates animal sounds to help people understand barking dogs Picture 1 AI translates animal sounds to help people understand barking dogs Picture 1

A better understanding of their animals by dog owners will help reduce frustration, anxiety and even abandonment, researchers say.

Test results based on a database of more than 200 minutes of barking from 74 dogs in Mexican cities show that the AI tool can successfully distinguish many different types of reactions including normal purrs and purrs. Angry barking when meeting a stranger.

Researcher Rada Mihalcea suggests that, in addition to dogs, the tool could be trained on other species such as birds and dolphins.

The tool is still under development, but scientists hope that it will be on the market within the next few years. The scientists have not yet announced the price and availability of the device. The AI bot is integrated inside a tool called Wav2Vec 2.0, which can accurately identify dog breeds through dog barking sounds, mainly chihuahuas, poodles and schnauzers.