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Ever wonder what your dog is thinking?

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au

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Re: Ever wonder what your dog is thinking?

#11

Post by hnick »

W-Stool wrote: post #9

One of the things I like about my cat (Eleanor Roosevelt, a one eyed Maine Coon that sat in the local SPCA for 8 months) is that I don't try to understand her. She does her thing, mostly involving naps and head scratches, and I just admire her calm and general contentment. Whatever your dog or cat is thinking, I would suggest you just leave it alone and appreciate the life those animals live that seem so contented. W…

I'll disagree, for my dog at least. It is fun to watch the gears turn in his head, sometimes I see the conclusion he'll get to before he gets there. And sometimes, since I know him so well, I know where his 'dog logic' will take him with his flawed world view. It makes a kind of internal sense, when you don't see the big picture. It's fun and made me realise how far AI is from even replicating a dog's language-less thought process.

It also makes me think of alien species who might view us the same way.

It has a practical side too, our guy usually slinks off to the couch for naptime after dinner but a few months back he walked to the office and just stood in the doorway staring at us. We could instantly tell by his expression that something was wrong. He turned out to have a grass seed lodged in his armpit (Which the vet did not find! I had to remove it myself the next day).

It is fun to just watch him sleep and dream, though.

Re: Ever wonder what your dog is thinking?

#13

Post by mft_ »

I get that this is mostly for fun, but isn’t there a huge problem here, in that training the algorithm first requires human interpretation of the animal’s emotions? Which is a huge uncertainty in the first place?

Re: Ever wonder what your dog is thinking?

#14

Post by kortex »

mikedilger wrote: post #12

I woke up my dog to take a picture of her and see how this AI does. It ranked her as Unsettled (100%). Yep.

My poodle and I are both in the process of waking up. I got her attention to snap a pic, and it labeled her "Unsettled" too. Yeah, that's about what I feel before coffee, or in her case, fetch.

Re: Ever wonder what your dog is thinking?

#15

Post by kortex »

lvturner wrote: post #5

Tried this on a few photos of my dog - one of her half asleep, lying on her back and clearly very relaxed. It said she was angry. To be fair, it mis-identified her, and she is also a mixed-breed Asian dog so I'm not entirely surprised. But it brings up questions for the future - what happens when AI is wrong but used as proof of something?

> what happens when AI is wrong but used as proof of something?

False positives everywhere. There was an article on HN a few weeks back about cops picking up the wrong guy, flagged by facerec. Even though the system's printout had a huge warning, "This document is not a positive identification", the detective still had the density to say, "So I guess the computer got it wrong, too."

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/24/882683463/the-computer-got-it...

Re: Ever wonder what your dog is thinking?

#16

Post by me_me_me »

mft_ wrote: post #13

I get that this is mostly for fun, but isn’t there a huge problem here, in that training the algorithm first requires human interpretation of the animal’s emotions? Which is a huge uncertainty in the first place?

Ah yes, I am sure the authors are aware of it. And i am sure they tried to ask animals first and then settled on human interpretation as second best option.
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