Professor uses AI to decode the language of dogs [Video]

ARLINGTON, Texas — Imagine if you could finally understand what your dog is trying to tell you. That’s the ambitious goal of a research project underway at the University of Texas at Arlington, where Dr. Kenny Zhu, a computer science professor, is working to decode the language of man’s best friend.

“People have always tried to understand what animals are talking about,” Zhu said.

Using machine learning and advanced artificial intelligence, Zhu and his team aim to translate dog sounds into phonetic representations, and eventually, actual words.

“We are trying to do this completely automatically,” Zhu explained.

The project analyzes the sounds of dog barks, cataloging and segmenting them into numerical patterns. These patterns, like “27-9-32-20,” might correspond to specific “dog words,” according to Zhu.

“We’ve been able to discover certain word-like patterns,” he added.

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