An interesting new paper in AI and Society on the history of clichés, with the latest reuse in AI. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Starting the year in Dutch and Belgian news @devolkskrant.bsky.social @demorgen.be

Going to MLA soon to talk about digital infrastructures of knowledge creation

I'm honored to be a part of @ucbids.bsky.social where open science is the highest priority! Artificial Humanities are open to everyone here: www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

Delo's article on funding open science mentions my new book. I'm grateful to @uofmpress.bsky.social for supporting open access for Artificial Humanities and to my universities, Harvard & UC Berkeley, that significantly contributed to the cost of whooping $15,000 through open access initiatives.

– Our work crossed into Nature, The Economist, NatGeo, WIRED, IEEE Spectrum, Die ZEIT, and even the Venice Biennale – We spent the summer thinking about the future of language and AI at Schloss Dagstuhl and in linguistics and AI communities worldwide

We had a whale of a year. 🐋 This year we continued researching what counts as language and intelligence -- in humans, animals, and machines. A few highlights: – We uncovered vowels and diphthongs in sperm whales, with consequences that reach all the way to law and animal rights

– We showed that recursion and metalinguistic analysis, long assumed to be uniquely human, can now be carried out by LLMs – We built tools that let models analyze and generate language itself, including entirely new languages

We had a whale of a year. 🐋 This year we continued researching what counts as language and intelligence -- in humans, animals, and machines. A few highlights: – We uncovered vowels and diphthongs in sperm whales, with consequences that reach all the way to law and animal rights

Great work by Gasper Begus and team. AI helping us to understand our world in new ways… hat tip National Geographic…✨🐳✨😊✨

🐋 Sperm whales communicate in ways similar to humans according to a new study from UC Berkeley and Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) by Linguistics Professor Gašper Beguš. Read more here: https://bit.ly/3KbEMiN #Linguistics #Research #Impact

Recently, Gašper Beguš and his team put several large language models through a litany of tests — including having them generalize the rules of a made-up language. Most failed to match human linguistic ability. But one LLM greatly exceeded expectations. www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-a...

And recent research found that sperm whales communication systems (language?) has the equivalent of vowels! www.popsci.com/environment/...

"My team and I have been able to discern that sperm whales have their own alphabet and that this alphabet seems to be pillared by their own version of vowels. I’ve learned that humans are far from the only species intelligent and complex enough to develop a form of language and culture."

1️⃣3️⃣ Credit: Gašper Beguš, Ronald L. Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva, Shane Gero; Vowel- and Diphthong-Like Spectral Patterns in Sperm Whale Codas. Open Mind 2025; 9 1849–1874. doi: doi.org/10.1162/OPMI...

All books are 50% off until January 4 at the press website, which makes for less than $10 for First Encounters with AI. Ships in October 2026 press.umich.edu/Books/F/Firs...

Sperm Whale Clicks May Be More Complex Than Once Thought, and Similar to Human Language todayheadline A new study on sperm whale communication reveals that these animals produce sounds like human vowels. The research, published in the journal Open Mind, was part of Project CETI (Cetacean…

3️⃣Using a new type of acoustic visualization, researchers discovered that sperm whale clicks have spectral properties similar to the formants of human vowels — the very frequencies that make “ah” different from “ee.” 🎙️➡️🐋

Simultaneously awesome and so frustrating. This research used machine learning to identify previously undetected significant markers in sperm whale communication, acoustically analogous to human vowels. In essence, the researchers learned to hear the difference between "make" and "mike". BUT 😮‍💨

“Imagine if we truly understand complex whale communication & can extend our term ‘language’ to them. Such breakthroughs would not only rewrite biology textbooks but also fundamentally redefine what it means to be human & pave the way to instituting new protections for whales, the ocean & beyond”🧪

If you speak whale, you may know that sperm whales communicate with click vocalizations that they group into units called codas. A new study in @openmindjournal.bsky.social shows that within these codas appear to be vowels & diphthongs, used similarly to humans: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

8️⃣ Then it gets even better. Researchers found diphthong-like codas — where formants rise or fall smoothly over the sequence. Yes, whales basically have their own “ai” and “ey” sounds. 😳

In a first, AI models analyze language as well as a human expert If language is what makes us human, what does it mean now that large language models have gained “metalinguistic” abilities? www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-a...

6️⃣ Hydrophones attached directly to the whales revealed at least two stable “whale vowel” types found across different individuals: 🔵 A-code — one distinct formant 🔵 I-code — two formants This isn’t random noise — it’s consistent.

Thank you @discovermag.bsky.social and Avery Hurt for delving into CETI’s recent publication, “Vowel- and Diphthong-Like Spectral Patterns in Sperm Whale Codas,” by: @begus.bsky.social, Ronald Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva & Shane Gero. Read the article here: bit.ly/3MKqR45 📷: Amanda Cotton

The book is currently under 50% discount at the press website with the code HOLIDAY25

The new results show a steady “chipping away” at properties that had been regarded as the exclusive domain of human language, Beguš said. “It appears that we’re less unique than we previously thought we were.” www.wired.com/story/in-a-f...

The new results show a steady “chipping away” at properties that had been regarded as the exclusive domain of human language, Beguš said. “It appears that we’re less unique than we previously thought we were.” www.wired.com/story/in-a-f...

If language is what makes us human, what does it mean now that large language models have gained “metalinguistic” abilities? www.wired.com/story/in-a-f...

Some questions: - What are (artificial) humanities? - What is good literature? - Your goal as a researcher? - University differences between USA and Slovenia? - What should young people study?

The interview for the humanities research event at the University of Ljubljana got English subtitles! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld4f...

Bioacoustics just got more accessible, as CETI Scientists led by CETI Robotics Team Member, Daniel Vogt, have published the first fully open-source digital bioacoustics sensor for studying marine animals! Explore here: bit.ly/4q4VIaa 🎨: PACT. Media

"It took many months of careful study, like parsing Homeric Greek or Hittite legal texts, but eventually he discovered sounds that are incredibly similar to human vowels. What had previously seemed like Morse code now sounded much like human language." www.discovermagazine.com/sperm-whale-...

"It took many months of careful study, like parsing Homeric Greek or Hittite legal texts, but eventually he discovered sounds that are incredibly similar to human vowels. What had previously seemed like Morse code now sounded much like human language." www.discovermagazine.com/sperm-whale-...

Sharing this book from University of Michigan Press. It is an interesting approach to the development of AI. Excited to read this in the next few days. The book is on open access and free to download. www.fulcrum.org/concern/mono...

5️⃣ Whales have a similar setup: • vibrating phonic lips = source • distal air sac = filter And that air sac appears to act as a resonator, creating formant-like structures! 🧠

An interview with me for RAL on why we would be wise to be very careful with letting AI into legal and policymaking world.

An interview with me for RAL on why we would be wise to be very careful with letting AI into legal and policymaking world.

Just today: My interview on Artificial Humanities begins with a generated image of humanlike AI. news.berkeley.edu/2025/12/01/h...

Marine biologists are locked in what observers describe as “an academic slap fight” over whether sperm whales communicate using vowel-like patterns or whether researchers just need better microphones. Read more below... #linguistics #Research #spermwhale #vowels #whale #OddNews

Sperm Whales and Their Almost-Human Speech 1️⃣Sperm whale communication is far more complex than we thought. And here’s the wild part — it actually sounds surprisingly close to human speech. Yes, really. Researchers from the CETI project just found vowel-like features in whale clicks. 🐋🔊

Credit: Gašper Beguš, Ronald L. Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva, Shane Gero; Vowel- and Diphthong-Like Spectral Patterns in Sperm Whale Codas. Open Mind 2025; 9 1849–1874. doi: doi.org/10.1162/OPMI...

#1 in CompLit in USA #4 in Media Studies in Canada!

Artificial Humanities launches now in a conversation with the author @ninabegus.bsky.social, Ted Chiang and James Yu. press.umich.edu/Books/A/Arti... @uofmpress.bsky.social

Artificial Humanities launches now in a conversation with the author @ninabegus.bsky.social, Ted Chiang and James Yu. press.umich.edu/Books/A/Arti... @uofmpress.bsky.social

The book is launching tomorrow: bsky.app/profile/begu...

In her new book, UC Berkeley researcher Nina Beguš explores how art, history and literature provide a window into AI development, revealing a hopeful — and cautionary — path forward for humanity. news.berkeley.edu/2025/12/01/h...

Creating artificial life has been in the domain of fiction for millennia. Artificial Humanities leverages fiction and humanities for evaluating and creating AI in the future. The book launches tomorrow in a conversation with the author @ninabegus.bsky.social, Ted Chiang and James Yu.

Creating artificial life has been in the domain of fiction for millennia. Artificial Humanities leverages fiction and humanities for evaluating and creating AI in the future. The book launches tomorrow in a conversation with the author @ninabegus.bsky.social, Ted Chiang and James Yu.

Original paper is here direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...