0:00:00.567,0:00:02.844
Well, now we're going to the Bahamas to meet

0:00:02.844,0:00:05.087
a remarkable group of dolphins that I've been working with

0:00:05.087,0:00:08.554
in the wild for the last 28 years.

0:00:08.554,0:00:11.749
Now I'm interested in dolphins because of their large brains

0:00:11.749,0:00:13.863
and what they might be doing with all that brainpower

0:00:13.863,0:00:15.338
in the wild.

0:00:15.338,0:00:17.610
And we know they use some of that brainpower

0:00:17.610,0:00:19.774
for just living complicated lives,

0:00:19.774,0:00:22.634
but what do we really know about dolphin intelligence?

0:00:22.634,0:00:24.338
Well, we know a few things.

0:00:24.338,0:00:26.527
We know that their brain-to-body ratio,

0:00:26.527,0:00:28.497
which is a physical measure of intelligence,

0:00:28.497,0:00:30.993
is second only to humans.

0:00:30.993,0:00:32.551
Cognitively, they can understand

0:00:32.551,0:00:34.980
artificially-created languages.

0:00:34.980,0:00:38.121
And they pass self-awareness tests in mirrors.

0:00:38.121,0:00:40.225
And in some parts of the world, they use tools,

0:00:40.225,0:00:42.540
like sponges to hunt fish.

0:00:42.540,0:00:45.191
But there's one big question left:

0:00:45.191,0:00:47.058
do they have a language, and if so,

0:00:47.058,0:00:49.462
what are they talking about?

0:00:49.462,0:00:52.905
So decades ago, not years ago,

0:00:52.905,0:00:55.068
I set out to find a place in the world

0:00:55.068,0:00:56.866
where I could observe dolphins underwater

0:00:56.866,0:01:00.109
to try to crack the code of their communication system.

0:01:00.109,0:01:02.723
Now in most parts of the world, the water's pretty murky,

0:01:02.723,0:01:05.962
so it's very hard to observe animals underwater,

0:01:05.962,0:01:07.721
but I found a community of dolphins that live

0:01:07.721,0:01:10.747
in these beautiful, clear, shallow sandbanks of the Bahamas

0:01:10.747,0:01:12.989
which are just east of Florida.

0:01:12.989,0:01:15.400
And they spend their daytime resting and socializing

0:01:15.400,0:01:17.270
in the safety of the shallows, but at night,

0:01:17.270,0:01:21.069
they go off the edge and hunt in deep water.

0:01:21.069,0:01:24.893
Now, it's not a bad place to be a researcher, either.

0:01:24.893,0:01:27.069
So we go out for about five months every summer

0:01:27.069,0:01:31.271
in a 20-meter catamaran, and we live, sleep and work

0:01:31.271,0:01:33.349
at sea for weeks at a time.

0:01:33.349,0:01:35.989
My main tool is an underwater video with a hydrophone,

0:01:35.989,0:01:37.939
which is an underwater microphone, and this is so

0:01:37.939,0:01:40.033
I can correlate sound and behavior.

0:01:40.033,0:01:41.679
And most of our work's pretty non-invasive.

0:01:41.679,0:01:44.501
We try to follow dolphin etiquette while we're in the water,

0:01:44.501,0:01:47.629
since we're actually observing them physically in the water.

0:01:47.629,0:01:50.769
Now, Atlantic spotted dolphins are a really nice species

0:01:50.769,0:01:52.733
to work with for a couple of reasons.

0:01:52.733,0:01:55.664
They're born without spots, and they get spots with age,

0:01:55.664,0:01:58.698
and they go through pretty distinct developmental phases,

0:01:58.698,0:02:00.640
so that's fun to track their behavior.

0:02:00.640,0:02:04.093
And by about the age of 15, they're fully spotted black and white.

0:02:04.093,0:02:06.516
Now the mother you see here is Mugsy.

0:02:06.516,0:02:08.501
She's 35 years old in this shot,

0:02:08.501,0:02:11.691
but dolphins can actually live into their early 50s.

0:02:11.691,0:02:14.994
And like all the dolphins in our community,

0:02:14.994,0:02:17.765
we photographed Mugsy and tracked her little spots

0:02:17.765,0:02:19.507
and nicks in her dorsal fin,

0:02:19.507,0:02:21.710
and also the unique spot patterns

0:02:21.710,0:02:24.053
as she matured over time.

0:02:24.053,0:02:26.712
Now, young dolphins learn a lot as they're growing up,

0:02:26.712,0:02:29.787
and they use their teenage years to practice social skills,

0:02:29.787,0:02:32.140
and at about the age of nine, the females

0:02:32.140,0:02:34.810
become sexually mature, so they can get pregnant,

0:02:34.810,0:02:36.781
and the males mature quite a bit later,

0:02:36.781,0:02:38.896
at around 15 years of age.

0:02:38.896,0:02:40.636
And dolphins are very promiscuous,

0:02:40.636,0:02:43.498
and so we have to determine who the fathers are,

0:02:43.498,0:02:45.952
so we do paternity tests by collecting fecal material

0:02:45.952,0:02:48.816
out of the water and extracting DNA.

0:02:48.816,0:02:51.280
So what that means is, after 28 years,

0:02:51.280,0:02:53.688
we are tracking three generations,

0:02:53.688,0:02:56.032
including grandmothers and grandfathers.

0:02:56.032,0:02:58.648
Now, dolphins are natural acousticians.

0:02:58.648,0:03:00.932
They make sounds 10 times as high

0:03:00.932,0:03:03.120
and hear sounds 10 times as high as we do.

0:03:03.120,0:03:05.715
But they have other communication signals they use.

0:03:05.715,0:03:09.056
They have good vision, so they use body postures to communicate.

0:03:09.056,0:03:11.256
They have taste, not smell.

0:03:11.256,0:03:13.296
And they have touch.

0:03:13.296,0:03:15.492
And sound can actually be felt in the water,

0:03:15.492,0:03:18.523
because the acoustic impedance of tissue and water's about the same.

0:03:18.523,0:03:22.153
So dolphins can buzz and tickle each other at a distance.

0:03:22.153,0:03:24.693
Now, we do know some things about how sounds are used

0:03:24.693,0:03:26.102
with certain behaviors.

0:03:26.102,0:03:28.201
Now, the signature whistle is a whistle

0:03:28.201,0:03:32.900
that's specific to an individual dolphin, and it's like a name. (Dolphin whistling noises)

0:03:32.900,0:03:35.076
And this is the best-studied sound,

0:03:35.076,0:03:36.705
because it's easy to measure, really,

0:03:36.705,0:03:38.662
and you'd find this whistle when mothers and calves

0:03:38.662,0:03:40.799
are reuniting, for example.

0:03:40.799,0:03:43.857
Another well studied sound are echolocation clicks.

0:03:43.857,0:03:47.103
This is the dolphin's sonar. (Dolphin echolocation noises)

0:03:47.103,0:03:50.420
And they use these clicks to hunt and feed.

0:03:50.420,0:03:52.808
But they can also tightly pack these clicks together

0:03:52.808,0:03:54.943
into buzzes and use them socially.

0:03:54.943,0:03:56.921
For example, males will stimulate a female

0:03:56.921,0:03:59.425
during a courtship chase.

0:03:59.425,0:04:01.752
You know, I've been buzzed in the water.

0:04:01.752,0:04:03.684
(Laughter)

0:04:03.684,0:04:06.065
Don't tell anyone. It's a secret.

0:04:06.065,0:04:08.361
And you can really feel the sound. That was my point with that.

0:04:08.361,0:04:12.093
(Laughter)

0:04:12.093,0:04:14.618
So dolphins are also political animals,

0:04:14.618,0:04:16.929
so they have to resolve conflicts.

0:04:16.929,0:04:18.572
(Dolphin noises)

0:04:18.572,0:04:20.945
And they use these burst-pulsed sounds as well as

0:04:20.945,0:04:23.353
their head-to-head behaviors when they're fighting.

0:04:23.353,0:04:25.425
And these are very unstudied sounds

0:04:25.425,0:04:27.563
because they're hard to measure.

0:04:27.563,0:04:30.282
Now this is some video of a typical dolphin fight.

0:04:30.282,0:04:32.303
(Dolphin noises)

0:04:32.303,0:04:34.393
So you're going to see two groups,

0:04:34.393,0:04:36.601
and you're going to see the head-to-head posturing,

0:04:36.601,0:04:39.945
some open mouths,

0:04:39.945,0:04:42.101
lots of squawking.

0:04:42.101,0:04:45.686
There's a bubble.

0:04:45.686,0:04:48.269
And basically, one of these groups will kind of back off

0:04:48.269,0:04:49.923
and everything will resolve fine,

0:04:49.923,0:04:53.583
and it doesn't really escalate into violence too much.

0:04:53.583,0:04:55.887
Now, in the Bahamas, we also have resident bottlenose

0:04:55.887,0:04:58.831
that interact socially with the spotted dolphins.

0:04:58.831,0:05:01.542
For example, they babysit each other's calves.

0:05:01.542,0:05:03.719
The males have dominance displays that they use

0:05:03.719,0:05:06.119
when they're chasing each other's females.

0:05:06.119,0:05:08.541
And the two species actually form temporary alliances

0:05:08.541,0:05:10.919
when they're chasing sharks away.

0:05:10.919,0:05:13.830
And one of the mechanisms they use to communicate

0:05:13.830,0:05:15.830
their coordination is synchrony.

0:05:15.830,0:05:18.941
They synchronize their sounds and their body postures

0:05:18.941,0:05:21.075
to look bigger and sound stronger.

0:05:21.075,0:05:22.551
(Dolphins noises)

0:05:22.551,0:05:25.143
Now, these are bottlenose dolphins,

0:05:25.143,0:05:26.914
and you'll see them starting to synchronize

0:05:26.914,0:05:28.815
their behavior and their sounds.

0:05:28.815,0:05:33.183
(Dolphin noises)

0:05:33.183,0:05:35.429
You see, they're synchronizing with their partner

0:05:35.429,0:05:39.401
as well as the other dyad.

0:05:39.401,0:05:41.915
I wish I was that coordinated.

0:05:44.731,0:05:47.805
Now, it's important to remember that you're only hearing

0:05:47.805,0:05:49.700
the human-audible parts of dolphin sounds,

0:05:49.700,0:05:51.863
and dolphins make ultrasonic sounds,

0:05:51.863,0:05:53.421
and we use special equipment in the water

0:05:53.421,0:05:55.158
to collect these sounds.

0:05:55.158,0:05:57.723
Now, researchers have actually measured whistle complexity

0:05:57.723,0:05:59.786
using information theory,

0:05:59.786,0:06:03.677
and whistles rate very high relative to even human languages.

0:06:03.677,0:06:07.529
But burst-pulsed sounds is a bit of a mystery.

0:06:07.529,0:06:10.616
Now, these are three spectragrams.

0:06:10.616,0:06:13.291
Two are human words, and one is a dolphin vocalizing.

0:06:13.291,0:06:17.163
So just take a guess in your mind which one is the dolphin.

0:06:19.150,0:06:21.743
Now, it turns out burst-pulsed sounds actually look

0:06:21.743,0:06:24.247
a bit like human phonemes.

0:06:24.247,0:06:25.513
Now, one way to crack the code

0:06:25.513,0:06:28.058
is to interpret these signals and figure out what they mean,

0:06:28.058,0:06:32.056
but it's a difficult job, and we actually don't have a Rosetta Stone yet.

0:06:32.056,0:06:34.178
But a second way to crack the code

0:06:34.178,0:06:36.143
is to develop some technology,

0:06:36.143,0:06:38.323
an interface to do two-way communication,

0:06:38.323,0:06:40.687
and that's what we've been trying to do in the Bahamas

0:06:40.687,0:06:43.127
and in real time.

0:06:43.127,0:06:45.783
Now, scientists have used keyboard interfaces

0:06:45.783,0:06:47.847
to try to bridge the gap with species

0:06:47.847,0:06:49.935
including chimpanzees and dolphins.

0:06:49.935,0:06:52.960
This underwater keyboard in Orlando, Florida,

0:06:52.960,0:06:54.702
at the Epcot Center, was actually

0:06:54.702,0:06:57.519
the most sophisticated ever two-way interface designed

0:06:57.519,0:07:00.383
for humans and dolphins to work together under the water

0:07:00.383,0:07:02.310
and exchange information.

0:07:02.310,0:07:04.930
So we wanted to develop an interface like this

0:07:04.930,0:07:07.300
in the Bahamas, but in a more natural setting.

0:07:07.300,0:07:09.467
And one of the reasons we thought we could do this

0:07:09.467,0:07:11.489
is because the dolphins were starting to show us

0:07:11.489,0:07:13.093
a lot of mutual curiosity.

0:07:13.093,0:07:16.004
They were spontaneously mimicking our vocalizations

0:07:16.004,0:07:18.324
and our postures, and they were also inviting us

0:07:18.324,0:07:20.957
into dolphin games.

0:07:20.957,0:07:23.604
Now, dolphins are social mammals, so they love to play,

0:07:23.604,0:07:26.924
and one of their favorite games is to drag seaweed,

0:07:26.924,0:07:30.036
or sargassum in this case, around.

0:07:30.036,0:07:32.172
And they're very adept. They like to drag it

0:07:32.172,0:07:36.492
and drop it from appendage to appendage.

0:07:36.492,0:07:39.188
Now in this footage, the adult is Caroh.

0:07:39.188,0:07:43.060
She's 25 years old here, and this is her newborn, Cobalt,

0:07:43.060,0:07:45.744
and he's just learning how to play this game.

0:07:45.744,0:07:47.470
(Dolphin noises)

0:07:47.470,0:07:51.940
She's kind of teasing him and taunting him.

0:07:51.940,0:07:56.369
He really wants that sargassum.

0:07:56.369,0:07:59.280
Now, when dolphins solicit humans for this game,

0:07:59.280,0:08:02.331
they'll often sink vertically in the water,

0:08:02.331,0:08:04.760
and they'll have a little sargassum on their flipper,

0:08:04.760,0:08:07.379
and they'll sort of nudge it and drop it sometimes

0:08:07.379,0:08:08.913
on the bottom and let us go get it,

0:08:08.913,0:08:11.129
and then we'll have a little seaweed keep away game.

0:08:11.129,0:08:12.965
But when we don't dive down and get it,

0:08:12.965,0:08:14.938
they'll bring it to the surface

0:08:14.938,0:08:18.112
and they'll sort of wave it in front of us on their tail

0:08:18.112,0:08:20.198
and drop it for us like they do their calves,

0:08:20.198,0:08:22.400
and then we'll pick it up and have a game.

0:08:22.400,0:08:24.750
And so we started thinking, well, wouldn't it be neat

0:08:24.750,0:08:27.568
to build some technology that would allow the dolphins

0:08:27.568,0:08:30.843
to request these things in real time, their favorite toys?

0:08:30.843,0:08:33.213
So the original vision was to have a keyboard

0:08:33.213,0:08:35.386
hanging from the boat attached to a computer,

0:08:35.386,0:08:37.901
and the divers and dolphins would activate the keys

0:08:37.901,0:08:40.791
on the keypad and happily exchange information

0:08:40.791,0:08:42.949
and request toys from each other.

0:08:42.949,0:08:44.743
But we quickly found out that dolphins simply

0:08:44.743,0:08:47.869
were not going to hang around the boat using a keyboard.

0:08:47.869,0:08:50.005
They've got better things to do in the wild.

0:08:50.005,0:08:52.269
They might do it in captivity, but in the wild --

0:08:52.269,0:08:54.994
So we built a portable keyboard that we could push through the water,

0:08:54.994,0:08:57.734
and we labeled four objects they like to play with,

0:08:57.734,0:09:00.675
the scarf, rope, sargassum, and also had a bow ride,

0:09:00.675,0:09:02.786
which is a fun activity for a dolphin. (Whistle)

0:09:02.786,0:09:04.629
And that's the scarf whistle,

0:09:04.629,0:09:07.547
which is also associated with a visual symbol.

0:09:07.547,0:09:09.841
And these are artificially created whistles.

0:09:09.841,0:09:12.469
They're outside the dolphin's normal repertoire,

0:09:12.469,0:09:14.889
but they're easily mimicked by the dolphins.

0:09:14.889,0:09:19.068
And I spent four years with my colleagues Adam Pack and Fabienne Delfour,

0:09:19.068,0:09:21.289
working out in the field with this keyboard

0:09:21.289,0:09:23.933
using it with each other to do requests for toys

0:09:23.933,0:09:25.592
while the dolphins were watching.

0:09:25.592,0:09:26.959
And the dolphins could get in on the game.

0:09:26.959,0:09:28.894
They could point at the visual object,

0:09:28.894,0:09:31.368
or they could mimic the whistle.

0:09:31.368,0:09:34.736
Now this is video of a session.

0:09:34.736,0:09:36.937
The diver here has a rope toy,

0:09:36.937,0:09:39.185
and I'm on the keyboard on the left,

0:09:39.185,0:09:41.833
and I've just played the rope key,

0:09:41.833,0:09:45.044
and that's the request for the toy from the human.

0:09:45.044,0:09:48.247
So I've got the rope, I'm diving down,

0:09:48.247,0:09:50.881
and I'm basically trying to get the dolphin's attention,

0:09:50.881,0:09:51.949
because they're kind of like little kids.

0:09:51.949,0:09:54.506
You have to keep their attention.

0:09:54.506,0:09:59.193
I'm going to drop the rope, see if they come over.

0:09:59.193,0:10:01.697
Here they come,

0:10:01.697,0:10:03.006
and then they're going to pick up the rope

0:10:03.006,0:10:04.612
and drag it around as a toy.

0:10:04.612,0:10:06.397
Now, I'm at the keyboard on the left,

0:10:06.397,0:10:08.707
and this is actually the first time that we tried this.

0:10:08.707,0:10:11.573
I'm going to try to request this toy, the rope toy,

0:10:11.573,0:10:14.141
from the dolphins using the rope sound.

0:10:14.141,0:10:18.452
Let's see if they might actually understand what that means.

0:10:19.752,0:10:20.978
(Whistle)

0:10:20.978,0:10:23.678
That's the rope whistle.

0:10:23.678,0:10:24.975
Up come the dolphins,

0:10:24.975,0:10:28.580
and drop off the rope, yay. Wow.

0:10:28.580,0:10:31.564
(Applause)

0:10:31.564,0:10:33.324
So this is only once.

0:10:33.324,0:10:36.132
We don't know for sure if they really understand the function of the whistles.

0:10:36.132,0:10:38.600
Okay, so here's a second toy in the water.

0:10:38.600,0:10:40.389
This is a scarf toy, and I'm trying to lead the dolphin

0:10:40.389,0:10:42.726
over to the keyboard to show her

0:10:42.726,0:10:45.916
the visual and the acoustic signal.

0:10:45.916,0:10:48.983
Now this dolphin, we call her "the scarf thief,"

0:10:48.983,0:10:52.476
because over the years she's absconded

0:10:52.476,0:10:55.054
with about 12 scarves.

0:10:55.054,0:10:58.828
In fact, we think she has a boutique somewhere in the Bahamas.

0:10:58.828,0:11:02.522
So I'm reaching over. She's got the scarf on her right side.

0:11:02.522,0:11:04.286
And we try to not touch the animals too much,

0:11:04.286,0:11:06.422
we really don't want to over-habituate them.

0:11:06.422,0:11:08.537
And I'm trying to lead her back to the keyboard.

0:11:08.537,0:11:12.483
And the diver there is going to activate the scarf sound

0:11:12.483,0:11:14.294
to request the scarf.

0:11:14.294,0:11:17.043
So I try to give her the scarf.

0:11:17.043,0:11:20.018
Whoop. Almost lost it.

0:11:20.018,0:11:22.934
But this is the moment where everything becomes possible.

0:11:22.934,0:11:24.679
The dolphin's at the keyboard.

0:11:24.679,0:11:26.237
You've got full attention.

0:11:26.237,0:11:28.493
And this sometimes went on for hours.

0:11:28.493,0:11:29.948
And I wanted to share this video with you

0:11:29.948,0:11:31.733
not to show you any big breakthroughs,

0:11:31.733,0:11:32.853
because they haven't happened yet,

0:11:32.853,0:11:35.479
but to show you the level of intention and focus

0:11:35.479,0:11:38.126
that these dolphins have, and interest in the system.

0:11:38.126,0:11:40.147
And because of this, we really decided we needed

0:11:40.147,0:11:42.241
some more sophisticated technology.

0:11:42.241,0:11:44.441
So we joined forces with Georgia Tech,

0:11:44.441,0:11:47.117
with Thad Starner's wearable computing group,

0:11:47.117,0:11:49.079
to build us an underwater wearable computer

0:11:49.079,0:11:50.945
that we're calling CHAT. [CHAT: Cetacean Hearing And Telemetry]

0:11:50.945,0:11:52.981
Now, instead of pushing a keyboard through the water,

0:11:52.981,0:11:56.599
the diver's wearing the complete system, and it's acoustic only,

0:11:56.599,0:11:59.607
so basically the diver activates the sounds on a keypad

0:11:59.607,0:12:00.786
on the forearm,

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the sounds go out through an underwater speaker,

0:12:02.974,0:12:04.384
if a dolphin mimics the whistle

0:12:04.384,0:12:06.893
or a human plays the whistle, the sounds come in

0:12:06.893,0:12:09.469
and are localized by two hydrophones.

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The computer can localize who requested the toy

0:12:12.816,0:12:14.853
if there's a word match.

0:12:14.853,0:12:17.417
And the real power of the system is in the real-time

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sound recognition, so we can respond to the dolphins

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quickly and accurately.

0:12:21.461,0:12:25.645
And we're at prototype stage, but this is how we hope it will play out.

0:12:25.645,0:12:28.923
So Diver A and Diver B both have a wearable computer

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and the dolphin hears the whistle as a whistle,

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the diver hears the whistle as a whistle in the water,

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but also as a word through bone conduction.

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So Diver A plays the scarf whistle

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or Diver B plays the sargassum whistle

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to request a toy from whoever has it.

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What we hope will happen is that the dolphin mimics the whistle,

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and if Diver A has the sargassum, if that's the sound

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that was played and requested,

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then the diver will give the sargassum to the requesting dolphin

0:12:55.962,0:12:57.778
and they'll swim away happily into the sunset

0:12:57.778,0:13:00.895
playing sargassum for forever.

0:13:00.895,0:13:04.275
Now, how far can this kind of communication go?

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Well, CHAT is designed specifically to empower the dolphins

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to request things from us.

0:13:09.746,0:13:12.139
It's designed to really be two-way.

0:13:12.139,0:13:15.418
Now, will they learn to mimic the whistles functionally?

0:13:15.418,0:13:17.299
We hope so and we think so.

0:13:17.299,0:13:19.443
But as we decode their natural sounds,

0:13:19.443,0:13:23.031
we're also planning to put those back into the computerized system.

0:13:23.031,0:13:26.531
For example, right now we can put their own signature whistles

0:13:26.531,0:13:30.626
in the computer and request to interact with a specific dolphin.

0:13:30.626,0:13:34.356
Likewise, we can create our own whistles,

0:13:34.356,0:13:36.675
our own whistle names, and let the dolphins

0:13:36.675,0:13:39.443
request specific divers to interact with.

0:13:39.443,0:13:42.364
Now it may be that all our mobile technology

0:13:42.364,0:13:45.500
will actually be the same technology that helps us

0:13:45.500,0:13:48.731
communicate with another species down the road.

0:13:48.731,0:13:52.363
In the case of a dolphin, you know, it's a species that,

0:13:52.363,0:13:55.746
well, they're probably close to our intelligence in many ways

0:13:55.746,0:13:58.289
and we might not be able to admit that right now,

0:13:58.289,0:14:00.113
but they live in quite a different environment,

0:14:00.113,0:14:04.613
and you still have to bridge the gap with the sensory systems.

0:14:04.613,0:14:06.297
I mean, imagine what it would be like

0:14:06.297,0:14:07.906
to really understand the mind

0:14:07.906,0:14:11.691
of another intelligent species on the planet.

0:14:11.691,0:14:13.039
Thank you.

0:14:13.039,0:14:17.963
(Applause)