Ever Wonder What Your Dog's Bark Means? New AI Tool Will Help

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Researchers are testing out new Artificial Intelligence tools in an attempt to decode what a dog's bark means.

Yes, even though any dog owner most likely knows the difference between a happy, joyful bark and a defensive, warning, angry bark - University of Michigan researchers, nevertheless, are trying to understand more about how a dog communicates.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO DECODE DOG'S BARKS

"By using speech processing models initially trained on human speech, our research opens a new window into how we can leverage what we built so far in speech processing to start understanding the nuances of dog barks," director of Michigan's AI laboratory Rada Mihalcea said.

Using Artificial Intelligence and algorithms, researchers say that they could potentially not only learn more about what a dog is saying, but why they are saying it as well. Ultimately, they believe this could help humans understand and communicate with their dogs better. 

We're not quite like the dog from Pixar's "Up" film yet - but it appears that's where we may be heading!

AI TOOLS WERE FIRST USED TO HELP STUDY HUMAN VOICES

Scientists are currently studying 74 different types of dog's vocalizations - aka barking patterns and tones, in an attempt to further understand just what Spot is trying to tell his owner. They hope to establish a database of sounds that they will then be able to build upon. 

"Animal vocalizations are logistically much harder to solicit and record. They must be passively recorded in the wild or, in the case of domestic pets, with the permission of owners," the study explained.

In addition to trying to learn "what" dogs are saying, researchers also hope to understand "what kind" of dog is behind each particular sound. They hope the new AI features will lay the groundwork for determining a dog's age, breed, and sex merely from its barks.

Being able to communicate with your pets better? That's what AI tool I can get behind - much better than robot bartenders or creepy AI television commercials!