Crows are even smarter than we thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#221

Post by Cupertino95014 » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 12:30 PM UTC

theamk wrote: post #116

andewulfe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ted Chiang has an excellent short story on this subject, regarding the construction of the Arecibo radio telescope as told from the perspective of a parrot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Silence_(short_story... It's very short. Worth a quick read and a long thought.

Here is my long thought: People have been trying to talk to animals for thousands (tens of thousands?) of years, and no "animal myths" were discovered. Some researchers have dedicated their live trying to understand the animals (story mentions one of them), but still got nothing useful. I think it's fair to assume there is nothing to find there at all. And alien life is not special in that regard - if we are able to…

There's plenty to find. Ask any dog or cat owner.

I think if your 4-year-old aliens were found, many humans would find them charming and fun pen pals (assuming they're not dangerous).

It would be useful as the fly by of Pluto, where we finally found out things we couldn't possibly have known looking from here.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#222

Post by FrustratedMonky » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 12:40 PM UTC

evanmoran wrote: post #98

tetrisgm wrote: post #33

We're not the only intelligent life on earth. We cant even define intelligence or measure it meaningfully. If we accept that human children are smart, then we must accept that species at equivalent levels of cognition are as well. Elephants, crows, dolphins, octopi, chimps, orang utan are all clearly very smart, and more intelligent than a human child. Besides being biologically irrelevant, the separation between hum…

I like the sentiment, but human children who are 2 completely dominate all known animal intelligence. They can speak in sentences and use tools in complex ways. There may be studies that show a raven might use a stick to help it find food. Well, a two year old will carry a stool halfway across the house to reach the scissors that will open a bag of veggie straws :) At 3 they can recognize letters _easily_ and start l…

"humanity is beyond special"

My own offspring is so cute, surely we are unique in the universe.

AI in the future, talking to another AI: "These humans are so cute, just give them little challenges like increasing shareholder value, they will learn to speak up in meetings and move things around. They aren't really intelligent, but they can be trained to make things for us".

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#223

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 12:44 PM UTC

badbird33 wrote: post #207

sitkack wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Found Gary Larson's alt account. You should turn it into a short movie using AI. I have thought something similar but more along the lines that in the universe above us, we are 3 days into a science experiment and either a) they don't know we exist or b) the look in with their microscope and see patterns for cities or c) they have a statistical measure of how many have developed ecosystems and set off a nuclear weapo…

This reminds me of Dark City: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/

[deleted]

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#224

Post by bumby » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 12:52 PM UTC

evanmoran wrote: post #98

tetrisgm wrote: post #33

We're not the only intelligent life on earth. We cant even define intelligence or measure it meaningfully. If we accept that human children are smart, then we must accept that species at equivalent levels of cognition are as well. Elephants, crows, dolphins, octopi, chimps, orang utan are all clearly very smart, and more intelligent than a human child. Besides being biologically irrelevant, the separation between hum…

I like the sentiment, but human children who are 2 completely dominate all known animal intelligence. They can speak in sentences and use tools in complex ways. There may be studies that show a raven might use a stick to help it find food. Well, a two year old will carry a stool halfway across the house to reach the scissors that will open a bag of veggie straws :) At 3 they can recognize letters _easily_ and start l…

Just to play devils advocate, I think part of what the OP may be saying is that our intelligence is mapped to our survival. From that perspective, animals can be more intelligent than a 2 year old. A stray cat is infinitely more capable of surviving the wild than a 2 year old human; they are more “intelligent” in that survival capacity by far. So again, to the OPs point, it depends on how we’re measuring intelligence; if it’s based on the skills humans are specialized for, of course humans will be shown to be more intelligent.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#225

Post by coldtea » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 1:10 PM UTC

natmaka wrote: post #76

tux1968 wrote: post #27

Have posted this before, but it really left an impression about crows, and the bond between their mates: Years ago I was putting out the garbage in the back alley behind our building where I lived on the 8th floor. A crow attacked me out of the blue. Distracted by the attack, the back door slammed shut behind me. Since my key was only good for the front door, I had to walk around the building. That damn crow followed…

We should establish that the crow would only 'attack' any human living in this flat (and neglect any other human walking by this back alley).

If the crows who live in the area didn't do this for every other day, but only on that ocassion - and stopped when the issue was solved, I don't think we need to establish anything, it's kind of established already.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#226

Post by KineticLensman » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 1:12 PM UTC

jakeogh wrote: post #186

KineticLensman wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raptor talons are really serious weapons - they are the killing mechanism, not the beak. In larger birds comparable to a Rottweiler’s jaw in power. They also have a ratchet-like behaviour, so the bird has to actually want to let you go once you have been grabbed, and struggling usually only makes the bird grip harder

Oh yea, their claws are wild. I got to experience the Tucson Desert Museum demo[0] (it's still going, but this was 16+ years ago)... it's amazing. The falconer had a leather covered arm even though the bird is a close friend. They are smart AF, but watch out for the beak too if it's injured/scared. A vet told me, if you handle a raptor, protect your hands, they can take a chunk. Same goes for long billed birds[1]. [0…

yeah, I volunteer at a UK raptor conservancy. For handling most of the birds a falconer's glove is okay but for the bald eagle we have a long leather guard for the whole arm - it's actually a boot that someone cut the foot off. A couple of the handlers describe being seriously gripped by a bird - you just have to keep still and grin and bear it until the bird decides to let go.

I got a scratch on the side of my head once from a black kite that 'clonked' me with its talons as it flew past but this was just messing about, not a serious attack.

One other thing is how I would feed the birds. Some of them (e.g. a hooded vulture) I would pass food to their beak with my bare hand but with other birds this would be a good way to lose a finger.

Also, their Egyptian vulture likes playing with shoe laces (undoing them by pulling) and also tugging on leg hair if you are wearing shorts. The Yellow-billed kites like grabbing people's hats if they are wearing them.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#227

Post by azemetre » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 1:13 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #106

I think I've come to an inevitable conclusion that there appears to be at least two "sources" of intelligence, genetic, and (I guess for lack of a better word), "learned". Learned could mean all kinds of things, the capacity measurement of IQ, the effort by parents to fill that capacity, social normative steering, whatever. But genetic really means "instinct" in the way that a day old deer can stand, run, graze (I li…

You should check out the sci fi book Blindsight by Peter Watts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)

It's a first contact story about an alien species that doesn't have consciousness.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#228

Post by whamlastxmas » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 1:13 PM UTC

milleramp wrote: post #111

When I was little I had a small bb gun and would shoot cans in the backyard. A couple times i shot a crow and it would bounce off their strong chest and they would fly off seemingly unfazed. One time by pure chance I hit a crow in the neck and it died instantly, crashing down into my neighbor's yard. It was very shocking because I had not killed anything like that before. Immediately crows started circling my parents…

I had a similar experience when I was a kid shooting a .22 and was like “no way I can hit this bird” and totally did. I instantly felt like a huge prick as I stood there watching this bird die. I went back to get my gun to humanely finish it off but didn’t manage to find it again when I walked back. First and last time I’ve ever thoughtlessly harmed an animal

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#229

Post by eru » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 1:16 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #210

eru wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't they have wireless communication? What benefits did the pigeons have?

Harder to intercept?

You'd want to encrypt your communication in either case.

Re: Crows are even smarter than we thought

#230

Post by TomMasz » Sat, Aug 31, 2024, 1:28 PM UTC

Corvids and parrots upended our beliefs about bird intelligence and made us realize there's more than one way to organize a brain. We still have a lot to learn about them.