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I've heard about crows that take a nut to the street, leave it on street, wait for a car to get over it then wait for red light and get the nut. Such an intelli

by lossolo 10y ago

I've heard about crows that take a nut to the street, leave it on street, wait for a car to get over it then wait for red light and get the nut. Such an intelligence in such a small brain, incredible.

nneonneo 10y ago
Video, narrated by David Attenborough: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0 The cleverest crows drop the nuts on the pedestrian crosswalk, so that there is a long safe duration to grab the cracked but.
PeCaN 10y ago
See also the Portia spider, which is somehow capable of planning ahead and following prey even when it's out of sight. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160121-jumping-spiders-animals-science/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160121-jumping-sp...
- DanAndersen 10y ago
  I assume you've read the book Echopraxia?
  - PeCaN 10y ago
    Nope.
agumonkey 10y ago
There's a TEDxTalk about them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiAoqwsc9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiAoqwsc9g 22min worth of 22min.
finid 10y ago
> Such an intelligence in such a small brain, incredible. With time, we'll come to accept that intelligence has nothing to do with the size of the brain. Compare the computing power of the processor in the computer you carry in your pocket with the one that powered desktops of a decade ago.
- Swizec 10y ago
  That's because transistors are smaller now than they were a decade ago. In terms of transistor count, modern processors are much bigger than processors were a decade ago. The question then becomes: Is neuron size constant? Can some animals have smaller neurons?
- ajuc 10y ago
  Transistors were invented last century. Neurons were invented millions years ago, we're most probably near the physical optimum.
tzs 10y ago
Small brains, but corvid and parrot brains have a higher neuron density, with neuron counts comparable to non-human primates such as apes, so it is not too surprising that they can be pretty smart. I think the most interesting thing about their intelligence is that their brains do not have a prefrontal cortex, which for mammals (including humans) is where much of what we associate with intelligence occurs. In birds they have a region called the nidopallium in the mid part of the brain that handles those things. Our last common ancestor with birds was something that lived before the dinosaurs, and would have had little or no higher level cognitive abilities. It would have been operating almost entirely on instinct. It had neither a prefrontal cortex nor a nidopallium. Intelligence did not evolve in birds and mammals until after they split from that common ancestor. So what we have with intelligence in birds and intelligence in mammals is parallel evolution. With other mammals that are intelligent, such as whales, dolphins, non-human primates, pigs, dogs, etc., they have brains that are essentially the same architecture as ours. We've just got a better implementation. Intelligent birds, on the other hand, are a different architecture.
- dharma1 10y ago
  How about cephalopods? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence
- joeyo 10y ago
  I think this is what you're getting at, but the really interesting question regarding corvid intelligence (in my opinion) is whether their pallium implements the same or similar computations and uses the same or similar representations as mammalian neocortex. Clearly because of the different evolutionary origin there are structural/architectural differences (eg pallium is nucleated rather than laminated), but maybe there is only a single computational "solution" to the problem of general intelligence. To pose it as a question: does avian pallium solve problems in similar ways/using similar algorithms as mammalian cortex or did its early divergence allow it to find different solutions? I think the answer to this, whichever way it breaks, will have pretty big implications for AI generally. Same story goes for Cephalopods.
yareally 10y ago
The relative mass of the brain to the body is what really matters. The brain:body mass ratio for a crow is roughly the same as a chimp.
- clarry 10y ago
  Although we joke about stupid obese Americans, I don't buy that the mass of the body surrounding the brain has any relation to cognitive abilities. Of course you may need a bigger brain to control a body with more muscles (e.g. elephant trunk), but muscle control is quite automatic and has little to do with intelligence.
  - yareally 10y ago
    I was referring to species in general, not specific humans. The encephalization quotient[1] doesn't work quite as well for comparing primates to other primates either. The encephalization quotient is a fairly reliable way predict general animal intelligence. It's not just some anecdotal evidence. It's obviously not a silver bullet, because there are edge cases it doesn't consider, but the numbers it gives do give a very basic way to tell if a species may have sophisticated cognitive abilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient
Vivtek 10y ago
I've witnessed this personally in Budapest (lots and lots of crows on the edge of town during the winter; if corvids ever develop a cultural consciousness I would not be surprised if it wound up speaking Hungarian).

by lossolo 10y ago

nneonneo 10y ago

Video, narrated by David Attenborough: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0 The cleverest crows drop the nuts on the pedestrian crosswalk, so that there is a long safe duration to grab the cracked but.

PeCaN 10y ago

See also the Portia spider, which is somehow capable of planning ahead and following prey even when it's out of sight. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160121-jumping-spiders-animals-science/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160121-jumping-sp...

DanAndersen 10y ago
I assume you've read the book Echopraxia?
- PeCaN 10y ago
  Nope.

agumonkey 10y ago

There's a TEDxTalk about them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiAoqwsc9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiAoqwsc9g 22min worth of 22min.

finid 10y ago

> Such an intelligence in such a small brain, incredible. With time, we'll come to accept that intelligence has nothing to do with the size of the brain. Compare the computing power of the processor in the computer you carry in your pocket with the one that powered desktops of a decade ago.

Swizec 10y ago
That's because transistors are smaller now than they were a decade ago. In terms of transistor count, modern processors are much bigger than processors were a decade ago. The question then becomes: Is neuron size constant? Can some animals have smaller neurons?
ajuc 10y ago
Transistors were invented last century. Neurons were invented millions years ago, we're most probably near the physical optimum.

tzs 10y ago

Small brains, but corvid and parrot brains have a higher neuron density, with neuron counts comparable to non-human primates such as apes, so it is not too surprising that they can be pretty smart. I think the most interesting thing about their intelligence is that their brains do not have a prefrontal cortex, which for mammals (including humans) is where much of what we associate with intelligence occurs. In birds they have a region called the nidopallium in the mid part of the brain that handles those things. Our last common ancestor with birds was something that lived before the dinosaurs, and would have had little or no higher level cognitive abilities. It would have been operating almost entirely on instinct. It had neither a prefrontal cortex nor a nidopallium. Intelligence did not evolve in birds and mammals until after they split from that common ancestor. So what we have with intelligence in birds and intelligence in mammals is parallel evolution. With other mammals that are intelligent, such as whales, dolphins, non-human primates, pigs, dogs, etc., they have brains that are essentially the same architecture as ours. We've just got a better implementation. Intelligent birds, on the other hand, are a different architecture.

dharma1 10y ago
How about cephalopods? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence
joeyo 10y ago
I think this is what you're getting at, but the really interesting question regarding corvid intelligence (in my opinion) is whether their pallium implements the same or similar computations and uses the same or similar representations as mammalian neocortex. Clearly because of the different evolutionary origin there are structural/architectural differences (eg pallium is nucleated rather than laminated), but maybe there is only a single computational "solution" to the problem of general intelligence. To pose it as a question: does avian pallium solve problems in similar ways/using similar algorithms as mammalian cortex or did its early divergence allow it to find different solutions? I think the answer to this, whichever way it breaks, will have pretty big implications for AI generally. Same story goes for Cephalopods.

yareally 10y ago

The relative mass of the brain to the body is what really matters. The brain:body mass ratio for a crow is roughly the same as a chimp.

clarry 10y ago
Although we joke about stupid obese Americans, I don't buy that the mass of the body surrounding the brain has any relation to cognitive abilities. Of course you may need a bigger brain to control a body with more muscles (e.g. elephant trunk), but muscle control is quite automatic and has little to do with intelligence.
- yareally 10y ago
  I was referring to species in general, not specific humans. The encephalization quotient[1] doesn't work quite as well for comparing primates to other primates either. The encephalization quotient is a fairly reliable way predict general animal intelligence. It's not just some anecdotal evidence. It's obviously not a silver bullet, because there are edge cases it doesn't consider, but the numbers it gives do give a very basic way to tell if a species may have sophisticated cognitive abilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient

Vivtek 10y ago

I've witnessed this personally in Budapest (lots and lots of crows on the edge of town during the winter; if corvids ever develop a cultural consciousness I would not be surprised if it wound up speaking Hungarian).