The Sounds of Life. How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants - Karen Bakker
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022
by Marcel Cobussen
Karen Bakker’s The Sounds of Life has the potential to become a classic. Or not. It may become one of those books to which sound studies scholars and sound artists will refer back to just like R. Murray Schafer’s The Soundscape, Steve Goodman’s Sonic Warfare or Ana Maria Ochoa Gaultier’s Aurality, for at least two reasons: first, a stronger scientific validation of Joachim Ernst Behrendt’s idea that practically the whole world is sounding, and second, the expectation (or hope) that through AI humans might soon be able to communicate with nonhuman living beings. Or not: given that AI is still in its infancy, the book might be deeply outdated and obsolete in the next decade – or even sooner.
Whichever of the two outcomes proves true, anno 2024 The Sounds of Life remains a fascinating book, even though many of the topics Bakker addresses regarding the sonic communication of nonhuman beings have already been published in (scientific) journals, magazines, or newspapers. Ultimately, in my opinion, her book is more of a well-written summary of existing knowledge on bioacoustics than an original contribution to that discourse (as evidenced by the notes and references that comprise more than one-third of the book).
In short, The Sounds of Life has two objectives, outlined in the Introduction. The first objective is to rethink the idea that (aural) communication is an exclusively human affair: “Carefully listening to the nonhuman world reveals complex communication in a broad range of species and challenged the claim that humanity, alone, uniquely possesses language” (p. 3). The second objective, which is more exciting and speculative, is to show that “now, digital technologies provide a new way for humanity to listen to the vivid soundscapes all around us, opening our ears to the resonant mystery of non-human sound” (p. 4). And Bakker immediately adds an extra layer to this last observation: “The same technologies that we use in the Internet of Things are now being developed to communicate with other species in fundamentally new ways” (p. 6). She calls this interspecies communication, at the same time making it clear what the potential consequences could be for us, humans: For centuries we consider (or have considered) ourselves to be unique, superior to other, nonhuman, living beings. However, the more we learn about the life of animals and plants (by being able to listen to them), the more we might become aware of our kinship with them, thereby subverting our alleged uniqueness.
In the next seven chapters, Bakker elaborates on these nonhuman communication systems as well as on the role that AI can play in helping us develop this interspecies communication.
It was not so long ago that we learned that whales communicate with one another across thousands of miles – something they had already been doing for centuries before humans discovered the same possibility with the so-called SOFAR channel. This communication system is indicative of whales’ complex social organizational formations (p. 23). Contemporary digital acoustic recording devices now reveal communication patterns that until recently were entirely unknown to science. The benefits of these discoveries, Bakker writes, are twofold: whales can be better understood and, hence, protected (p. 43).
Shifting from whales to elephants, Bakker expresses her interest in a research project that attempts to create a lexicon of elephant calls related to specific behaviors and interactions (p. 49) as well as in the “Hello in Elephant” app, which aims to translate human speech into elephant language thereby enabling more advanced forms of interspecies communication (p. 62).
Next, Bakker turns to turtles, which biologists long believed couldn’t produce sounds. Only in the first decade of this millennium did they discover that turtles actually do have a rather complex sonic communication system (even before they hatch), often below the range of human hearing (p. 72). Although it is still in an stage of development, digital bioacoustics can already link their vocalizations to specific behaviors. This relatively new research method, Bakker claims, makes it possible not only to listen to turtles but also to listen like turtles (p. 75).
Coral reefs are among the oldest living organisms on earth; they are like the rainforests of the marine world, providing a habitat for many sea creatures. Healthy coral reefs generate a cacophony of sounds that attract various marine species, including fish and coral larvae, which rely on these auditory cues to locate suitable habitats (p. 88). In turn, the presence of these fish is crucial for reef health, as they graze on algae that can otherwise overwhelm coral ecosystems.
Bakker’s ideas about interspecies (and nonhuman) communication take further shape in her description of Project Florence in which AI translates human speech into light signals to which plants can react. The data provided by the plant are then analyzed by an algorithm and sent back to a human as a text message. This is one innovative way to find out how plants sense and signal to the world – a form of vegetal epistemology, far removed from the anthropocentric idea of plants making sounds that humans can then listen to. Plants, researchers have found, perceive and respond to (primarily vibrational) changes and challenges in their environment; for example, they detect the sound of running water and grow in that direction (p. 107).
After these rather impressive examples, Bakker returns to the role of AI in bioacoustics, its pros and cons, its possibilities and limitations. Some of its positive contributions include:
- since human physiology is limited, AI may assist in overcoming these constraints (p. 165). In other words, digital acoustics expand our perceptual (and conceptual) horizons (p. 203);
- digital technology serves as a tool to refine scientific questions and gather more data for analysis (p. 128);
- non-invasive robots and machine learning can help decode the language of nonhumans (p. 160);
- AI algorithms can act as translators between nonhuman communication systems and human forms of communication (p. 136);
- AI is already capable of decoding languages solely on the basis of audio recordings, and its algorithms can process physical gestures and movements in relation to vocalizations (p. 168). For example, through AI we can begin to understand the ocean from the perspective of a whale (p. 174);
- we can initiate a meaningful dialogue with other species and learn from their oral histories (p. 162);
- digital bioacoustics enables us not only to listen into the interactions of nonhumans but also to protect them while modeling biodiversity in real time (p. 183 and p. 189).
Although outnumbered by the positive aspects, Bakker also mentions some potential caveats:
- machine learning methods still miss many subtle sounds and struggle to filter out background noise (p. 170);
- AI can identify vocal signals but does not necessarily understand or correctly decode their meaning (p. 171);
- these new technologies also risk being misused to further domesticate nonhumans (p. 174);
- thus far we have not yet adequately addressed data privacy issues in bioacoustics (p. 175);
- AI makes us aware that human verbalization is not the sole means of communication (p. 147).
Overall, Bakker takes an optimistic view of AI’s role in bioacoustics. She approvingly cites the bio-acoustician Michel André who states that, thanks to digital technologies, we have developed a new sense of being able to listen – everywhere, simultaneously, and continuously – to the environment, which gives us the opportunity to reconnect with nature (p. 200). This doesn’t mean teaching nonhumans to speak human languages, but rather designing devices that enable us to communicate with other species: first, by recording their complex forms of communication, and second, by using AI to decode them.
However, Bakker ends her book by stating that these new devices cannot (yet) completely replace human listening: “Only by combining digital listening with deep listening will we achieve understanding of the meaning of the sounds around us” (p. 201). This balanced conclusion, along with the astonishing examples she has assembled, makes The Sounds of Life a definite recommendation (if that is still necessary).
