I don’t know about you, but when a bunch of hens get to clucking, it can be pretty amusing to put words in their little beaks.

Now, scientists claim you no longer have to guess, because this AI can actually understand them.

The researchers, from Japan’s University of Tokyo, were led by professor Adrian David Cheok.

“We came up with a system capable of interpreting various emotional states in chickens, including hunger, fear, anger, contentment, excitement, and distress using cutting-edge AI technique we call Deep Emotional Analysis Learning.”

They say the technique can be used to adapt to chickens’ ever-changing vocal patterns, too, which means it should only get better.

The researchers tested the system by recording and analyzing samples from 80 chickens. They then fed the samples into AI in an attempt to relate the patterns to different emotional states.

For that part, they teamed up with animal psychologists and veterinary surgeons, who claimed it’s perhaps not as hard as you might think to interpret a chicken’s mental state.

“The results of our experiments demonstrate the potential of using AI and machine learning techniques to recognize emotional states in chickens based on their sound signals. The high average probabilities of detection for each emotion suggest that our model has learned to capture meaningful patterns and features from the chicken sounds.”

That said, their model would have to change with breeds, environmental conditions, and other variables that could throw the AI for a loop.

In addition, experts remind us that chickens use a lot of nonverbal cues, like body language and social interactions, to communicate their emotional state and needs, as well.

Even so, it’s a use for AI that’s more fun than controversial, and there’s something to be said for that.

Researchers believe that animals would be better off if we could understand them, and it’s hard to argue with that.