Breakthrough(7)

“…at the Miami City Aquarium where a team of marine biologists have been trying to do the unthinkable. Talk to another species. With me today is Frank Dubois, the director of the center and the research being done there. Welcome Dr. Dubois.”

“Thank you, Matt.” Frank’s face filled the screen and both Chris and Lee let out a whoop. He looked good, comfortable on camera, much better than she would have.

“Doctor, I have to say, this is really exciting. I never knew there was such research being done at the aquarium. How did this all get started?”

Frank flashed his perfect smile and shrugged graciously. He was a natural. “Well the idea is not all that new, but the technology required for this approach was not available until very recently. We started with a small grant and eventually garnered enough interest to pay some salaries. In fact, much of the first two years of research was done on a volunteer basis by our senior researcher Alison Shaw-”

Lee Kenwood leaned over and gave her a friendly bump. “Alright Ali.”

“It’s a miracle,” Chris mumbled under his breath.

“Stop it!” She blushed and stared back at the screen. Accepting compliments was not her strong point.

Lewis continued on screen. “So tell me about this IMIS system.”

“Well it’s a distributed computing system which means we divvy up the load to a lot of smaller individual computers, over a hundred in this case. This gives us processing power much greater than what we could achieve even with a super computer, and at a fraction of the cost.”

“And what does IMIS mean?

“IMIS is short for InterMammal Interpretive System.”

“And this IMIS translates the language?” asked Lewis.

Frank smiled. “Well not yet. But basically, yes IMIS works by recording all of the recognizable sounds from our dolphins; all of their clicks, whistles, even postures. Once all of those have been captured in multiple scenarios we then start the translation process using an advanced artificial intelligence program.” He smiled again. “Or at least we attempt a translation.”

Lewis frowned. “So is this going to work, I mean how long will it take to make this kind of breakthrough?”

“Well the recording phase, or what we call phase one, has been completed. Now we’ve begun phase two which is Translation, and that’s all computer. Unfortunately since this has never been done before we really don’t have an estimate on how long it will take. But the intelligence program is designed to learn as it goes, so every day it should get a little bit smarter.”

Lewis shook his head incredulously. “How on earth do you write a program that talks to dolphins?”

“You get IBM’s help.” They both laughed. “IBM is actually one of our sponsors. They have donated most of the hardware and a lot of programming brainpower. The software is really quite impressive.”

“I bet it is,” Lewis continued, looking down at his notes. “It says here that NASA is also one of your sponsors.”

“That’s right.”

Lewis shook his head. “Okay IBM I understand, but why NASA? What interest would they have in something like this?”

“That’s a common question. NASA is more interested in the technology that we’re using than us actually making contact. They are hoping to build on the technology and one day use it to communicate with an alien intelligence. If they find one that is.”

“Really?” Lewis was genuinely surprised.

Frank took a sip of water and nodded. “Yes. Their thinking is that our hopes of communicating with aliens are pretty remote if we haven’t even learned to communicate with another species on the same planet.” He shrugged. “The fundamental approaches should be very similar.”

“And here you are on the verge of doing just that.”

Frank smiled again and raised his hand in a cautionary gesture. “Well, I don’t know if I would say on the verge. We’re closer, a lot closer than say we were six years ago, but there is still a lot of work to do. In all honesty we may still be in for a very long wait. Like I said it’s up to the computers now.”

“So if you are able to translate what will you say? Obviously you’re not going to ask them what it’s like to be a fish.” The audience laughed.

“Well, we might still ask them that,” Frank said with a smile. “But no, it’s going to depend on what we can translate, if anything. Dolphins are the second smartest animal on the planet and they are the only species besides humans that are self-aware. For example, when you put a mirror in the tank, dolphins will actually look at themselves and even examine their bodies. They understand the connection and the fact that there is a world around them, so the depth of exchange possible here is staggering.”