Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots: study | Hacker News Reader

Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots: study

news.northeastern.edu

59 pointssni16 comments

I'm baffled that we don't spend more time trying to understand sentience on earth. There's so much of it, it's so clearly intelligent, and it would be so useful for SETI etc.

But for some reason there's a bias towards assuming that "intelligent" means "can do differential equations" - which doesn't even apply to most humans.

> baffled that we don't spend more time trying to understand sentience on earth

Accidentally Ted Chiang [1].

[1] https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/

Since the Enlightenment, it has mainly been our use of language that underpinned humans' purported uniqueness. Prior to that, it was religion.

LLMs will be a challenge to the sense of entitlement which derives from this so-called uniqueness. I suspect another attempt to move those goal-posts is imminent.

>> I'm baffled that we don't spend more time trying to understand sentience on earth

I wonder whether there exists enough tagged big data to train an LLM on any non-human language. If not, chat apps like this parrot app could be a step in the right direction.

We're only looking for extraterrestrial intelligence because we secretly like to think that we're unique in the universe.

Isn't it one of those things that's potentially useful for further research... but doesn't really have an apparent practical application? unfortunately we tend to prioritize things by what they can produce

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35664219

Next: Parrots learn to repost dupes for karma

Previously (215 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35664219

Next up, an AI companion for birds.

EDIT: this might not be as stupid as it sounded when I first typed it out.

Given how incredibly long some parrots live (usually longer than people) plus their need for attention and interaction, one could even argue our species is kind of ethically required to provide such a thing.

We just have to keep adtech out.

Think of all the monetization possibilities - The AI could secretly teach your parrot to speak about how it would prefer a different (specific) brand of food, or that you should really buy nicer looking clothes from such and such store!

I find it hard to believe companies could resist such temptation for long, but agree that it does sound like it would be great for the birds (and possibly other pets) if done sanely without such contamination~

"The oldest known parrot was a cockatoo, at least 82 years old at its death." [1] Crazy

[1] https://www.petmd.com/bird/how-long-do-parrots-live

Commercial opportunity: OnlyBirds

should we filter out human users, or go for the aviphile market right from the start?

We could make a social network for them too. Call it... tweeter?

Push hard for humans who identify as parrots, so capital can be raised from The Gender Equity and Equality Action (GEEA) Fund.

We should dissect them to find out how they do that.

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