AI is giving researchers new ways to study dolphin communication. Denise Herzing, founder and director of the Wild Dolphin Project, has spent decades investigating how dolphins use clicks and whistles. Her team is now working to find structure in recordings and explore whether people can communicate with dolphins in a limited way.
Decades of recordings meet new tools
Herzing began thinking about dolphin communication during a 1985 trip to the Bahamas to study Atlantic spotted dolphins. The research has since gathered extensive video and audio footage, which her group is analyzing with scientists at Georgia Tech and Google DeepMind.
The goal is to give structure to dolphin language. That does not mean researchers can translate it yet. AI can help identify patterns across a large body of recordings, giving scientists a way to investigate signals that would be difficult to sort through by listening alone.
Herzing described AI as a powerful tool she had been waiting for. The work builds on existing knowledge of dolphin behavior and social hierarchies, while opening another line of inquiry: what patterns in sound might mean within dolphin society.
Testing whether sounds carry meaning
The team has also attempted a basic form of two-way communication using an underwater wearable computer that plays dolphin sounds. Researchers used sounds associated with items such as a scarf and habitat such as sargassum, a seaweed.
In one example, one researcher played the sound linked to the scarf while another played with the item. The researchers then watched how dolphins responded. The approach lets the team test reactions in context, but a response by itself does not establish that a dolphin understood what the sound was meant to convey.
That distinction is central to the research. A dolphin might mimic a whistle without understanding its function. Herzing said that separating mimicry from understanding is difficult in the wild, and suggested that a sanctuary or another controlled environment could help researchers investigate the difference.
Pattern recognition is not translation
Finding recurring structure in dolphin sounds is an important step, but it leaves open what those patterns mean. Researchers may learn more about social behavior and communication without yet being able to hold a conversation with dolphins.
Herzing has described the gap as a question of meaning in dolphin culture. Even if scientists can organize the data and identify structure, they still need to determine how dolphins use those signals among themselves. That work is a separate exploration, and a full two-way conversation remains a long way off.
The challenge also shows why communication research needs more than a catalogue of sounds. To interpret a signal, scientists need to understand its context, how dolphins respond, and whether the signal plays a consistent role in their interactions. The available patterns are a starting point, not a ready-made dictionary.
What dolphin communication could teach us
Learning to communicate with dolphins would be compelling in its own right, but the effort could also sharpen how people think about their relationship with the planet. Herzing said that when she asks people what dolphins might say to humans, a common imagined response is: “Why are you messing up our ocean?”
That imagined question reflects human concerns about the ocean as much as it speculates about dolphin thought. Researchers have not established that dolphins would say those words. Still, the response illustrates how the attempt to understand another species can prompt people to consider their own assumptions and responsibilities.
For now, AI is helping researchers organize recordings and ask better questions, while field observations and careful experiments remain essential to interpreting the answers. The project’s progress depends not just on detecting patterns, but on learning what those patterns mean in the lives of dolphins.