(ANTIMEDIA) – A Swedish tech startup announced last week it will begin using its language analysis software to translate dolphin communications. The aquatic mammals, who have long been considered one of the most intelligent animal species on Earth, are known to have a complex communication system. Now, the Gavagai AB company will attempt to use artificial intelligence technology to decipher this language and even compile a dolphin dictionary.

Gavagai AB, which has used its textual analysis software to master 40 languages thus far, will collaborate with researchers from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology to study and monitor captive bottlenose dolphins.

In an interview with Bloomberg, KTH adjunct professor and Gavagai co-founder Jussi Karlgren stated their lofty goal:

“We hope to be able to understand dolphins with the help of artificial intelligence technology. We know that dolphins have a complex communication system, but we don’t know what they are talking about yet.”

If the four-year project is successful, it could have a huge impact on other fields, as well. Because such a venture would have vast implications for machine learning and algorithmic technology, analysts believe translating dolphin communications will pave the way for advancements in the business world, too, including how large corporations like Amazon respond to customer requests. The project will also impact the zoology field as researchers learn about the intimate intercommunications of another species.

Other analysts point to the U.S. Navy’s history of using dolphins to locate mines and suggest there are perhaps many more ways that dolphins could assist humans in military matters.

In David Brin’s award-winning science fiction novel Startide Rising, humans and dolphins work together on interstellar missions as a single uplifted unit using both psychic powers and artificial intelligence. While we are certainly a long way off from that, some researchers say that analyzing dolphin language sets a precedent of learning to communicate with intelligent species and could one day assist humans in communicating with aliens.

For now, Gavagai CEO Lars Hamberg said in an email statement that the ultimate goal is direct communication with dolphins and understanding their language. While science fiction concepts envisioning a human/dolphin symbiosis may have to wait, the thought of reading conversations between dolphins should strike anyone as a leap into the future.

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