Inspired by: https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1707097197714489550 Will we build an audio system before 2040 that facilitates a nontrivial two-way exchange of information between humans and a dolphin or sperm whale (or any Cetacean). This market aims to have a high bar for what would qualify as a meaningful exchange. Some examples that would resolve YES: We build a system that can communicate the steps of a complicated trick or maneuver using an audio system alone to a dolphin. The dolphin attempts the trick, and we provide audio feedback about what it might have done wrong. In less than 3 rounds of feedback, the dolphin does the trick correctly We negotiate a trade between ourselves and a dolphin, asking what we must offer in order for it to complete an unfamiliar and nontrivial task. The dolphin responds vocally with a request that we can confidently interpret, then performs the task after the request is met. On an I-know-it-when-I-see-it basis, a conversation more conceptually broad and substantive than one can have with a typical two-year-old human

Probably not — Manifold Markets prediction market estimates a 33% chance (35 traders, as of Oct 2, 2026).

Meaningful two-way conversation between a dolphin/whale and a human before 2040

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Meaningful two-way conversation between a dolphin/whale and a human before 2040

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Inspired by:

https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/1707097197714489550

Will we build an audio system before 2040 that facilitates a nontrivial two-way exchange of information between humans and a dolphin or sperm whale (or any Cetacean). This market aims to have a high bar for what would qualify as a meaningful exchange.

Some examples that would resolve YES:

We build a system that can communicate the steps of a complicated trick or maneuver using an audio system alone to a dolphin. The dolphin attempts the trick, and we provide audio feedback about what it might have done wrong. In less than 3 rounds of feedback, the dolphin does the trick correctly
We negotiate a trade between ourselves and a dolphin, asking what we must offer in order for it to complete an unfamiliar and nontrivial task. The dolphin responds vocally with a request that we can confidently interpret, then performs the task after the request is met.
On an I-know-it-when-I-see-it basis, a conversation more conceptually broad and substantive than one can have with a typical two-year-old human

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The bar here is an audio system that carries a new instruction, which is a different thing from decoding. What exists: structure (Project CETI, Nature Communications, May 2024: 8,700 sperm-whale codas, combinatorial in rhythm, tempo, rubato and ornamentation, no meanings attached), generation (Google's DolphinGemma, April 2025, built on the Wild Dolphin Project's archive since 1985, can produce dolphin-like sequences) and classification (the Earth Species Project's NatureLM-audio, ICLR 2025). The dolphin precedent for two-way signalling is older: the Wild Dolphin Project's CHAT system has used synthetic whistles tied to objects since 2013, with dolphins mimicking them, which is a shared label and not a sentence. Getting from shared labels to communicating a manoeuvre needs a grammar the animal already has and that we can address, and the sperm-whale result is the first evidence of combinatorial structure, not of syntax. Fourteen years is enough for a few more such steps; 33% is fair for the high bar in the description, perhaps light for dolphins specifically, since every piece of the pipeline exists there and only the content is missing.

predictedYES

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a35kp/scientists-have-reported-a-breakthrough-in-understanding-whale-language

between humans and a dolphin or sperm whale

Slightly odd criteria. I would change this to the clade Cetacea.

In your first example the dolphin doesn’t actually have to say anything, right? That’s what makes me think it’s possible, since it looks a lot like training.

@NicoDelon Correct, the dolphin doesn’t have to speak in that example, though it would be a slam dunk YES if the dolphin asked clarifying questions we could answer.

Part of the reason why this would be a very impressive feat is because it currently takes us weeks to months to teach dolphins complex tricks; if a dolphin could learn something in a few tries with audio feedback, it would demonstrate a highly impressive transfer of information.

I don’t have a clear picture of how complicated the maneuver would have to be to count. It doesn’t need to be as hard or foreign as the most complex show tricks, but it shouldn’t be trivial. An example that comes to mind that seems impressive enough to resolve is to ask the dolphin to swim between several landmarks in a particular order, but I’m open to suggestions about what counts as “impressive enough.”