Are we really ready for genuine communication with animals through AI?

When my ginger rescue cat Marmalade crawls on my lap and meows at me urgently, I often find myself wishing I really knew what was going on inside his head.

It might seem like storybook stuff, but communicating with animals may be closer than we think. Earlier this year, researchers revealed they had discovered that sperm whales in the east Caribbean use a phonetic alphabet of 143 combinations of clicks. They described it as the closest system to human language yet discovered and hope that one day they will be able to communicate with these complex, social creatures.

But it…