Because symbolic communication is vastly simpler to define and use and translate than non-symbolic communication.
If whale songs and crow language could be written down in discrete symbols, we could figure them out too.
And with higher intelligence we assume that the symbolic language of mathematics will be a universally shared starting point.
The kind of analog pattern-matching required to decipher animal language seems to be notoriously difficult to do if your brain doesn't already come with the right analog "circuits".
I definitely hope that we'll have an AI breakthrough at some point that can decipher animal language, however. One thing's for sure though -- it won't be LLM's since they operate at a symbolic level.
If whale songs and crow language could be written down in discrete symbols, we could figure them out too.
And with higher intelligence we assume that the symbolic language of mathematics will be a universally shared starting point.
The kind of analog pattern-matching required to decipher animal language seems to be notoriously difficult to do if your brain doesn't already come with the right analog "circuits".
I definitely hope that we'll have an AI breakthrough at some point that can decipher animal language, however. One thing's for sure though -- it won't be LLM's since they operate at a symbolic level.