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Comment by cdplayer96 | Hacker News Reader

What's the legality on training an army of crows to collect loose change around the city for me?

Not great. You'd be an accomplice to a murder.

I always thought these plurals were just crazy, and felt so relieved to see decent researcher explaining them as potential jokes that ended up catching on and staying for centuries afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5rcbUqiZKI

Define "loose".

Edit, to add: years ago a lot of people kept pigeons in rooftop coops around NYC. As a kid there was an older guy near by who you'd see on his roof waving around a cloth that sort of directed the birds as they flew in a big flock. Now I'm imagining that but a flock of crows bringing back loot to some gangster on a rooftop.

This is a real thing with cigarette butts. You just need to set up a vending machine where the crows can "redeem" their trash for treats and they'll even teach each other about it.

I recall the story, and the attention the author received.

I can imagine this working, but digging into it at the time, there was no validation it worked at all. I couldn't get videos of it working, or even a cogent response from the author.

One of the things people seem to miss, is that bring intelligent doesn't mean domesticated. Or that an animal domesticates well.

Crows can understand a great deal, but does that mean they care to do your bidding? Even for treats?

Take a look at the differences between cats and dogs. You can train cats, but often they barely care. Dogs are, however, far easier to train.

Likely a difference in external validation.

And after all, what is true value to a crow? City crows seem to have an easy time of it. I don't think they go hungry, and there is lots of free tasty food.

So why would they care?

Crows have surprisingly diverse taste and are capable of delaying gratification. We feed peanuts, kibble and cashews, and of those the cashews are considered so delicious, that some crows will refuse other food in hopes that we'll hand out cashews.

It's pretty cute how disappointed they can look when they realize you just threw a peanut.

Not disputing this, but hanging around and waiting isn't the same as performing tasks for the same.

Again cats are harder to train than dogs, and that's with treat enticement too. Yet they will certainly make a face when given lesser food.

Also, keep an eye out for one crow watching for you to appear with treats. Once you do, he'll call the rest of the tribe.

I noticed a ypunger crow doing this. Unclear if it was assigned the task as a junior, or did so for street cred.

Adults were busy at this time of year showing juveniles how to find food and such.

ISTR a study where someone trained crows to retrieve street garbage. It stopped working because the peanuts or similar they were using to pay the crows were less valuable to them than the discarded pizzas etc they were supposed to be bringing back

i remember a similar project that used crows to pick up cigarette butts, don't know what happened of it though

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/01/swedish-...

As long as you report your earnings to the IRS, you should be good.

I guess you also need to make sure whether the crows are properly classified as employees or independent contractors.

If the crows' money is your money, would it also make you responsible for anything these crows do while collecting it ?

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