#Whales #WhaleLanguage #ScienceRocks Fascinating article. Whales are smart! www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Sperm #whales use vowels like humans, new study finds Scientists decoding whale clicks found patterns that echo the building blocks of human speech www.popsci.com/environment/... #globalmuseum #language

Exclusive: Sperm whale speech has human-like 'vowels' https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/sperm-whale-communicate-vowels 🐋 #cetaceans #marinemammals #marinelife #marinebiology #whales #Science

Thank you National Geographic and @chameauleon.bsky.social for featuring our research! By: @begus.bsky.social, Ronald Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva and Shane Gero. www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Thank you @economist.com for covering our paper,“Vowel and Diphthong-Like Spectral Patterns in Sperm Whale Codas.” By: @begus.bsky.social, Ronald Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva and Shane Gero.

Whowels!

As a former opera singer this makes perfect sense. Consonants are typically brief, & plosive sounds can't be sustained. But vowel sounds can be sustained for long durations (how much breath do you have?) and with more volume - perfect for underwater long distance communication 🐳

Whowels!

The clicks that the animals make share at least one property with human language

Dipthong song.

CETI scientists have discovered vowel and diphthong-like patterns in sperm whale communication! Read: bit.ly/3WSn9rc By: @begus.bsky.social, Ronald Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva & Shane Gero. @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, @umich.edu, @carleton.ca, @csail.mit.edu Animation: Meghan Fenske

What it means to be human in the age of AI and biotechnology? Take a look at the English translation of my speech from the Science Day celebration in Slovenia: medium.com/@begus.nina/...

Artificial Humanities launches in a conversation with Ted Chiang and James Yu at the Commonwealth club!

The Artificial Humanities preorders have arrived! Get your copy here: www.amazon.com/Artificial-H...

What distinguishes humanity? The answer has often come back to our language abilities. But some linguists think that eventually, AI will demonstrate an understanding of language that’s better than our own.

Thank you @insideclimatenews.org and @katiesurma.bsky.social for diving into our recent publication in partnership with The More-Than-Human Life Program (@nyulaw.bsky.social) by: César Rodríguez Garavito, David Gruber, Ashley Otilia Nemeth and @begus.bsky.social.

The Artificial Humanities preorders have arrived! Get your copy here: www.amazon.com/Artificial-H...

New arrival! @ninabegus.bsky.social

Recursion, the linguistic ability to embed phrases within phrases, is perhaps the defining characteristic of the human mind. It also shows up in nature. www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-a...

Language can be tricky to parse without context. For instance, the sentence “Rowan fed his pet chicken” is ambiguous. Is the chicken Rowan’s pet or his pet’s meal? Some AI models can recognize the syntactic differences between these two possible meanings.

Whoa, this is a stunning breakthrough. For the first time, AI models can analyze language as well as a human expert. This raises fascinating, huge questions about what it means to be human. An... https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-ai-models-analyze-language-as-well-as-a-human-expert-20251031/

#AI Models analyse language as well as a human expert- If language is what makes us human, what does it mean now that #LLLs have gained “metalinguistic” abilities?https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-ai-models-analyze-language-as-well-as-a-human-expert-20251031/

🎃 LLMs can do linguistics 👻

🎃 LLMs can do linguistics 👻

Across history, linguists have insisted that language sets humans apart from other species. But a new study demonstrating AI’s startlingly complex “metalinguistic” skills threatens to throw mankind’s exclusivity out the window. www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-a...

On whale rights, in the Inside Climate News today! “They have grandmothers, family bonds and conversations. They mourn their dead,” he said. “When you listen long enough, you realize their inner worlds might be as complex as ours.” insideclimatenews.org/news/2910202...

Researchers are using AI to help understand sperm whale communications. Lawyers think the discoveries could galvanize the world to recognize whales’ legal rights—and advance the global rights of nature movement.

$47 for the ticket and the book!

Researchers are using AI to understand whale communications. The findings could put animals’ voices at the heart of legal battles to protect them.

On whale rights, in the Inside Climate News today! “They have grandmothers, family bonds and conversations. They mourn their dead,” he said. “When you listen long enough, you realize their inner worlds might be as complex as ours.” insideclimatenews.org/news/2910202...

Researchers are using AI to decode whale communications. A new paper argues the findings could help make the case for the recognition of whales' legal rights—specifically a right to culture and a right to be free from torture. insideclimatenews.org/news/2910202...

$47 for the ticket and the book!

Excited to launch my book Artificial Humanities in a conversation with Ted Chiang and James Yu at the Commonwealth Club! Fiction is the new laboratory for testing, evaluating, and developing AI. www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2025-...

"The capacity for language exists along a continuum [...]. The idea that language development does not require uniquely human properties becomes increasingly important as legal boundaries expand to include nonhuman species."

"The capacity for language exists along a continuum [...]. The idea that language development does not require uniquely human properties becomes increasingly important as legal boundaries expand to include nonhuman species."

Dive into our article written in partnership with MOTH (@nyulaw.bsky.social) now published in Ecology Law Quarterly (ELQ) here: bit.ly/4hnUfbz 🐋🐝🐘🦋Co-authored by: César Rodríguez Garavito, David Gruber, Ashley Otilia Nemeth and @begus.bsky.social. 📸:Amanda Cotton, 🎨: Alejandro Ospina.

Law is language. What does finding language-like structure in more-than-humans mean for the law?

Law is language. What does finding language-like structure in more-than-humans mean for the law?

this could be useful for data augmentation for LLM training. translate some dataset into a bunch of different conlangs subject to different syntax rules. Generate a thousand translations of a single wikipedia article, convey a specific collection of facts with high confidence.

Thank you @cacmmag.bsky.social and @neilsavage.bsky.social for highlighting our work! Read the article here: bit.ly/42wEV6q Featuring our team: Shafi Goldwasser, Shane Gero, Jacob Andreas, Pratyusha Sharma, @begus.bsky.social and David Gruber.

From ancient languages to AI!

Did you know that historical linguistics inspired Darwin and his evolutionary theory?

So excited for this interview where I talk about how studying ancient languages feels like time travel, my work on poetic meter of the Rigveda, how transformative the study of historical linguistics is and about some of my favorite languages and linguists.

So excited for this interview where I talk about how studying ancient languages feels like time travel, my work on poetic meter of the Rigveda, how transformative the study of historical linguistics is and about some of my favorite languages and linguists.

The number of languages in the world just got a lot higher! At least constructed ones. Meet ConlangCrafter - a pipeline for creating novel languages with LLMs. A Japanese-Esperanto creole? An alien cephalopod color-based language? Enter your idea and see a conlang emerge. 🧵👇

I’m fascinated by the idea of a game like No Man’s Sky where infinite new civilizations could be generated dynamically with their own languages as the player explores the universe.

This is so sick. Next up, Toki Pona - Rust hybrid.

“Every language is a world” can now be translated into endless new constructed languages. Conlangcrafter is an LLM pipeline that generates new languages and their grammars. A language with only vowels? Languages with common triple center embedding? An impossible language?

“Every language is a world” can now be translated into endless new constructed languages. Conlangcrafter is an LLM pipeline that generates new languages and their grammars. A language with only vowels? Languages with common triple center embedding? An impossible language?

Excited to announce that our project "Deep language learning: from fiwGAN to LLMs" was awarded the Peder Sather Grant. We're starting a multi-year collaboration between @uio.no and @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social 🇳🇴