Meow meow meow meow. Meow, meow?

Today in technological claims that have to be walked back a bit immediately after making them: there's a new app that translates cat meows into English! Finally, we'll be able to have meaningful communication with a another life form. Incredible right?

Now if we could just crack what teens are saying.
What with their yeets and their yolos. AmIright, fellow olds?

What? Do you not think your
cat would eat your corpse?
Because it 100% would.

Very much so, so let's walk it back a bit. Cats don't have language, because they're, you know, cats. They do however, as you're probably aware, make noises. According to this article on People.com, Javier Sanchez, a former Alexa engineer, is developing software called MeowTalk which uses machine learning to identify the sounds and match them to nine different phrases which, according to Sanchez and his team, represent the nine different things a cat might be trying to tell you. Things like "I'm hungry" or "if you die I'll eat your corpse."

Well, maybe it's not that weird.
Human babies are pretty gross.

I've done some research of my own, and by research I mean I searched for "what cat meows mean" and am now going to present the first article from moderncat.com that came up as scientific fact. Because the internet. Anyway, did you know that adult cats don't meow to one another? Meowing is something they do as kittens and when they meow at you it's because they're treating you like their mother. So basically if you own a cat, you have a tiny adopted child who shits in a box and brings you dead things it kills. Which, I mean, that's weird, right?

Yes. Ok, so according to moderncat, cats actually make twelve different sounds including meows, hisses, purrs, chirps, chatter, yowls, screams, caterwauls, snarls and breed talk (eww), so right off the bat, I'm skeptical about Sanchez's claims. Well, I was skeptical when I read that someone had come up with a cat translator, but my skepticism has deepened.

To be clear, Javier Sanchez looked at this and said:
"If only we knew what they were thinking..."

French: "Oui!"
Translation: I don't know, clean
my litter box? Who can say?

But MeowTalk's creator claims that the app translates vocalizations, but does that include hisses and purrs? Caterwauls? Whatever the hell breed talk is? One of the things the app allows is for users to "fine-tune" the accuracy of the translation. That means that you can tweak the translation based on your cat's unique vocalizations. So if the translator is translating your cat's meow as "I'm hungry" when really it's just saying "I want to kneed your flesh with my razor-sharp claws because I just enjoy inflicting pain on the people that give me food and shelter," you can adjust the app accordingly. On the other hand, isn't that a little like buying a French/English dictionary that you have to fill out yourself? If you already knew what your cat was saying, you wouldn't need the app, right?

Well, you probably don't need the app in any case. Look, I'm not a pet owner so what do I know? But I've certainly been around cats and I'm just not sure that their motivations are all that opaque. It's eat, sleep, shred your arms. Mystery: solved.

Pretty sure if this app were available in the Nile Delta circa
3200 B.C. Bast worshippers would have felt seriously let down.