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“Chubby, eat a few more, we went to the downstairs doghouse.” After a man said to the phone, the mobile phone horse sent a burst of barking. The puppy in front of the camera immediately lowered his head and retracted the dog’s claws. Later, the man repeatedly gestured to eat the dog food in front of him, and the puppy was indifferent. This is a scene from a recent short video with a high click-through rate on the web. From the comments of netizens, compared to the funny performance of the puppy, everyone is more surprisingly the dog language translator software in the men’s mobile phone: So magical?

As early as 2013, there were foreign animal behavior experts who said that in the next 5 to 10 years, animal language translators will be available, and human-animal communication will not be a problem. According to a survey conducted by the Southern Reporter, there are a number of animal language translator APPs on mobile APP and online shopping platforms, among which there are paid products, which can be sold for 388 yuan. Could it be predicted by foreign experts? It’s just an entertainment product with AI dice.

The same sentence, translated into different animal languages

Compared to the animal language translator entity product, there is more APP in the market for animal language translators. Nandu reporters counted in the mobile phone mall of the Android side, there are 29 related apps, and there are 36 models in the Apple Store. There is a free app called “Cat Language Dog Translator” on the Android client. There are 476 bad reviews in the 1035 comments, and nearly half. Nandu reporter personally tested the app.

After clicking the “Long press the record” button, the Southern Reporter repeatedly entered the same sentence, but the dog bark that was “translated” was different. In addition, the Southern Reporter also released the existing animal recordings of the APP and gave them to the dogs, but whether it was a “warning stranger” or a “puppy sobbing”, the pet dog was indifferent.

Compared to the free app, a paid app with 3.2 million installs in the Android client is not as high. An app called “Human Cat Communicator” can unlock the cat language translation function for 4.99 yuan, and there are 1200 negative comments in 1715 comments, reaching more than 70%. Some netizens commented on the app below: “The free trial period is completely useless, and you are allowed to repeat it. I used it and deleted it immediately. I don’t want to see it.”

On Taobao, Nandu reporter saw an animal language translator with a price of 388 yuan. The manufacturer is a Guangzhou company – Guangzhou Giant ElectronicsSub Technology Co., Ltd. Nandu reporter consulted Taobao customer service for some questions. According to customer service, the dog language translator is a smart translation machine that integrates translation and entertainment functions. When asked to comment that the translation accuracy of this product is not high, the customer service responded that everyone’s understanding of the animal’s response is different. In addition, the price of this product is only 300 yuan, and it is impossible to achieve the value of tens of thousands.

Principle: Collecting animal sounds and actions

In 2018, Guangzhou Juke Electronics CEO Yan Forest said in an interview with China International TV station CGTN that the principle of pet translator is to collect pet’s breathing, heartbeat, movement and call through a sensor module inside the machine. Sounds such as biological signals and translates them into human language. In short, the dog language translator not only translates the dog’s voice, but also the comprehensive translation of the dog’s voice and body movement language.

The dog language translator is not a new thing. It was first launched by the Japanese toy manufacturer Takara in August 2001. It was able to translate “dog language” to bring joy to people. “Funny Nobel Prize”. In 2013, a group called the Nordic Invention and Discovery Association (NCID) launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for a dog wearing device called “No More Woof”, which can analyze the puppy’s mood changes. The idea of ​​time and after computer analysis is processed into speech that humans can understand. However, the project eventually ended in abortion in 2017. Team leader NCID once said: “We spent more than two years participating in this project in our free time and without salary, but this proved to be just a Dream.”

Does the dog language translator have a scientific basis? In 2013, Professor Cohen Slobert Chikov, an American animal behavior expert, said that the mobile-sized animal language translator would become a reality within five to ten years. At the time, Professor Slobert Chikov was studying a new technique for translating the prairie dogs. He pointed out that this technology will eventually be used to translate the language of all other animals, and that talking to humans and animals is no longer a dream.

Secret: Cracking the hard-to-understand sound of humans is the key

Where is the difficulty of this technology? “People don’t know the dog language yet. How can the machine know about it?” A related staff member of a domestic language recognition company told the Southern Reporter that the principle of language recognition is simply based on the language human beings can understand, human language. Through the machine, converted into a zoo, divided into two processes, one is the human language recognition into machine instructions, and the second is the machine instructions converted into instructions that the dog can recognize. The first process is currently achievable. For example, human language translators, conference system transfer, etc. are all capable of this. But the key is whether the machine language can be converted into a signal that the dog can recognize.

Yes