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Comment by nine_k | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why the quotes around "count" are required.

> The crows flexibly produced between one and four vocalizations for corresponding cues associated with numerical values. Furthermore, they used different calls for different numbers.

Is this because the crows might just remember four separate stimuli, and did not demonstrate an understanding of integers in the Peano arithmetics style? I still think that producing a specific number of vocalizations, well, counts as counting.

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I think so (not the expert on biology, of course). Depending on the study and setup, crows can count even a bit more, maybe to 6-8. The thing is, humans also can only "intuitively" count only to 7-11 (depending on the person). Counting higher requires some abstract thinking, not just intuition.

I got paywalled but as a layperson I'd define actual counting as e.g. croaking the same number of times as how many treats are in front of you.

So I'd want to see 3 treats -> 3 croaks, not square -> 3 croaks and circle -> 4 croaks, to remove the quotes.

At the same time, teaching an animal to repeat a behavior an exact number of times is actually very tricky. For example, a dog will likely over-eagerly repeat the action until rewarded.

"between one and four vocalizations for corresponding cues associated with numerical values"

Counting to 4 seems awfully limited

Now imagine how limited computers are with their ability to count to only 1.

Most computers can count to 2^32-1, and many can count even higher! They can also string words together grammatically, which means they are one step away from an artificial general superintelligence explosion.

But when non-human animals use AAC systems, or vocalise words directly, to express wants or needs, they aren't really talking, because they don't use tree-like grammars.

What? Even really simple MCUs can output more symbols than 0 and 1 and of course they can count higher.

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