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Bird brains (2023)

dhanishsemar.com

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Re: Bird brains (2023)

#201

Post by nandomrumber »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #88
justonceokay wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel similarly about cats. I absolutely love cats but I didn’t have one for five years because I refuse to own one in an apartment. It seems like people torture animals to make sure that they have some attention when they get home

Apartment is no good for a cat but suddenly fine for you? It isn’t like it is in human nature to live in a shoebox either. Human nature is to live in the sahel, sleep under the stars, forage, and track game. The office and the apartment is genuinely a prison for the human in their evolved element.

How do you go sleeping under the stars when it’s below zero, blowing its guts out, and snowing.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#202

Post by nandomrumber »

soopypoos wrote: post #183
make3 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's funny because domesticated cats have much more developed frontal cortexes than their ancestors & it would be one of the things that feral cats lose to genetic drift (meaning, no conservation pressure in the wild). whatever boring stuff we have them do is apparently extremely mentally taxing compared to the wild.

"Your Pet Cat Has a Smaller Brain Than Its Wild Ancestors" https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cat-brains-have-sh...

more developed frontal cortexes

And smaller brains

Aren’t mutually exclusive

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#203

Post by bwv848 »

Supercompressor wrote: post #193
bwv848 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure man, if 700 years is far enough for you. Meanwhile, human spent thousands of years to domesticate junglefowl into chicken.

Domestication ≠ habitat classification. Alpine refers to habitat. Kea live, feed, and breed in alpine environments and are behaviourally adapted to it. By your logic, because my ancestors ~300 years ago aren’t from New Zealand, I’m not a New Zealander.

Sure man, ask the Keas, I am sure they like their new name and wouldn't prefer to live in lowland if human were to disappear in NZ.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#204

Post by gf000 »

albalus wrote: post #144
krona wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many animals (including birds, dogs, horses) like the sanctuary and comfort of a cage and choose to use them, but obviously it shouldn't be used like a prison.

Even prisoners walk back into their cells. Comfort doesn’t erase confinement. A bird’s world is the open sky—so an open door doesn’t make a cage any less of one.

That's oversimplifying the topic to some catchy lyrics' lines level.

Birds burn a ton of energy flying (at least the birds in question here, other birds can glide for long times), it's not something they would willingly do to no ends.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#205

Post by gf000 »

card_zero wrote: post #170
CalRobert wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but we’re not artificially inflating lynx populations because we think they’re cute…

That's an Iberian lynx. They were nearly extinct around the year 2000, but since then they've been reintroduced and relocated and nurtured with rabbits until the population grew 20 times bigger. Cuteness is not irrelevant to that in my opinion, but anyway it exists because humans decided it should, because it fits our idea of what nature would have done if we hadn't already interfered. Therefore ... it's OK that we a…

Except there are like 600 million cats worldwide..

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#206

Post by gf000 »

Jensson wrote: post #163
dinfinity wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're in tune with animals and spend time around a parrot, it's obvious there is a lot going on in their minds. Not saying there isn't and somewhat offtopic, but if you apply this to LLMs those are much , much 'smarter' than all the animals people like to call intelligent (or something similar). If you disagree, please tell me for which task requiring intelligence you'd rather have an animal's wit than that of…

> If you disagree, please tell me for which task requiring intelligence you'd rather have an animal's wit than that of an LLM. Navigating your way to a location without colliding with anything. Finding food in the woods. Such stuff that animals can do that we yet have AI be able to do.

Moving a complex system of muscles so that they can just stand upright is already very very complex, let alone intercepting a prey's movement mid-flight by just controlling all those muscles.

People way overestimate the actually intelligent part of LLMs vs simply being good at recalling context-related stuff from the training data.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#207

Post by dinfinity »

Jensson wrote: post #163
dinfinity wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're in tune with animals and spend time around a parrot, it's obvious there is a lot going on in their minds. Not saying there isn't and somewhat offtopic, but if you apply this to LLMs those are much , much 'smarter' than all the animals people like to call intelligent (or something similar). If you disagree, please tell me for which task requiring intelligence you'd rather have an animal's wit than that of…

> If you disagree, please tell me for which task requiring intelligence you'd rather have an animal's wit than that of an LLM. Navigating your way to a location without colliding with anything. Finding food in the woods. Such stuff that animals can do that we yet have AI be able to do.

Neither of those are based in intelligence, but rather in dexterity, agility and sensing capabilities. Try again, and this time please read the question carefully and answer in good faith rather than trying to (unsuccessfully) look for a loophole.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#208

Post by dinfinity »

gf000 wrote: post #206
Jensson wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you disagree, please tell me for which task requiring intelligence you'd rather have an animal's wit than that of an LLM. Navigating your way to a location without colliding with anything. Finding food in the woods. Such stuff that animals can do that we yet have AI be able to do.

Moving a complex system of muscles so that they can just stand upright is already very very complex, let alone intercepting a prey's movement mid-flight by just controlling all those muscles. People way overestimate the actually intelligent part of LLMs vs simply being good at recalling context-related stuff from the training data.

Complexity does not require intelligence. Modern computers (even without AI) and technological systems do incredibly complex things and I'm quite sure you would not call those systems (again, without AI) intelligent.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#209

Post by card_zero »

gf000 wrote: post #205
card_zero wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an Iberian lynx. They were nearly extinct around the year 2000, but since then they've been reintroduced and relocated and nurtured with rabbits until the population grew 20 times bigger. Cuteness is not irrelevant to that in my opinion, but anyway it exists because humans decided it should, because it fits our idea of what nature would have done if we hadn't already interfered. Therefore ... it's OK that we a…

Except there are like 600 million cats worldwide..

Sure, but now we've strayed far from the starting point which was that cats are bad because they torture small animals. In fact most animals are bad. The question becomes which animals do we want around the place.

Re: Bird brains (2023)

#210

Post by tosapple »

colordrops wrote: post #119
tombert wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of how I feel about most pets. I've thought about getting a pet turtle or tortoise [1] because they are my favorite animal, but I found out that in order for them to be happy and healthy they need a lot more room than I could easily fit in my house. Either a very large aquarium or a very large area for them to walk around depending on the species, neither of which I can easily have in my house. And I thin…

We adopted three kittens that were found locked into a suitcase and thrown into the trash. Our house is in hills with coyotes so these cats would not survive for any length of time outside. They'd probably also be sent to the pound if we didn't adopt them. I feel bad for confining them in our house but I don't know if there would have been a better outcome for them. Totally agree on more rare/exotic animals though -…

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