Ever wish you could understand what your pet is trying to tell you? Baidu, a Chinese tech giant, is now exploring whether artificial intelligence can make that possible. China’s largest search engine has filed a patent application with the China National Intellectual Property Administration for a system that aims to convert animal vocalisations into human language. The patent document, published this week, outlines a vision where AI can bridge the communication gap between species.
Efforts to decode animal communication are not new, but Baidu’s proposal represents the latest attempt to harness the power of AI in this area. According to the filing, the system would collect animal data such as vocal sounds, behavioural patterns, and physiological signals. These would then be preprocessed and merged, followed by AI-driven analysis to determine the emotional state of the animal. The system would then map these emotional states to semantic meanings that could be translated into human language.
Baidu said in its patent document that the technology could enable deeper emotional communication and understanding between animals and humans, ultimately improving the accuracy and efficiency of cross-species interaction. When asked about the timeline for turning the patent into a functional product, a Baidu spokesperson noted that the project is still in the research phase. “There has been a lot of interest in the filing of our patent application,” the spokesperson added.
Baidu has been at the forefront of China’s AI development, particularly since the global debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022. The company recently launched its latest AI model, Ernie 4.5 Turbo, claiming that it performs on par with leading models in several benchmark tests. Still, its chatbot has struggled to stand out in a crowded market.
The concept of using AI to interpret animal communication is also being pursued beyond China. For instance, Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) has been working since 2020 to decode how sperm whales communicate using AI and statistical models. Similarly, the Earth Species Project, a non-profit launched in 2017 and supported by tech figures like LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, is also focused on translating animal sounds into human language using AI.
Baidu’s patent application has sparked lively discussion on Chinese social media platforms. While many users expressed excitement at the idea of one day understanding their pets, others responded with a mix of curiosity and scepticism. “While it sounds impressive, we’ll need to see how it performs in real-world applications,” one Weibo user commented