Visited the new tech exhibit at the science museum and saw an AI that could identify bird calls from a 10 second clip.

3 comments

3 Comments

Ten seconds is what gets me. My dog barks for longer than that when the mail comes. Honestly, how can it get enough from such a tiny sound clip to know exactly what bird it is? Tbh it feels like they must be exaggerating that part for the show. I just can't picture it working that fast in the real woods with all the other noise.

tyler_burns663mo ago

Totally agree with you @nancy824... I bet the real test is picking out one bird call from a dozen others all chirping at once.

davis.linda1mo ago

Oh come on, you really think they'd fake something like that on a competition show? Ten seconds is plenty of time for a bird to belt out its whole song. My buddy’s a birder and he can ID a wood thrush from a single note half that long. Plus the app isn’t listening for the whole thing, it’s picking up on those tiny little patterns and frequencies we can’t even hear. And in the real woods with all that noise? That’s exactly why it works better than a human ear. The app can filter out the background chatter and focus on the one call it needs. I bet those ten seconds are like a goldmine of data for the algorithm.