Can AI crack animal language?

Can a robot arm wave hello to a cuttlefish—and get a hello back? Could a dolphin’s whistle actually mean “Where are you?” And are monkeys quietly naming each other while we fail to notice? These are just a few of the questions tackled by the finalists for this year’s Dolittle prize, a $100,000 award recognising early breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered interspecies communication. The winning project—announced today—explores how dolphins use shared, learned whistles that may carry specific meanings—possibly even warning each other about danger, or just expressing confusion. The other contending teams—working with marmosets, cuttlefish, and nightingales—are also pushing the boundaries of what human-animal communication might look like.