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Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food
- notjustanymike 9y agoNow I'm picturing a murder of crows on their smoke break.
- w3r3c3 9y agowith their mouth? dont do that.
- cujic9 9y agoBonus points when the crows learn they can speed up the process by dive bombing a smoker, causing them to run away in terror, dropping their cigarette in the process.
- diego_moita 9y agoThat is so cool! I'd suggest using eagles. In Southeast Asia thugs have been training monkeys to steal wallets, cellphones and cameras from tourists. We might get some know how from them.
- personjerry 9y agoMagpies already dive bomb everyone in Australia so they're 50% there
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Consultant32452 9y agoDid they learn the technique by watching the drop bears?
- lucasgonze 9y agoWe can even incentivize this by giving more food for bigger butts. ;)
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoMore bonus points if they group up and throw the device over, spilling all the food out. Or hack the thing and figure out what else activates it.
- azeirah 9y agoHave any of these stations been deployed so far? Interesting idea!
- clumsysmurf 9y agoThis seems neat, but cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals. Training birds to perform an action, but at the same time possibly poison themselves, is ethically perverse. What if their population collapses because of the exposure to something in the butts? (and perhaps this effects other parts of the ecosystem dependent on the services of crows ... like, but not limited to, mitigating hygiene hazards via carcass removal). Maybe we could train the people to pick up their own butts.
- undersuit 9y agoBirds have already been observed to use cigarette butts for nest building, and no resultant population crash has happened for them. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138655-birds-use-cigarette-butts-for-chemical-warfare-against-ticks/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138655-birds-use-cigar... Maybe the food being given to the crows is more beneficial than any of the downsides of the exposure to the butts.
- rhombocombus 9y agoIt seems to offer some sort of advantage in pest resistance, and I would assume over the (sometimes) shorter lifespan of the birds that do this that advantage outweighs the toxicity of the butts.
- jackgolding 9y agoIf you read through to a linked article you'll find there is indeed long term health effects to the birds https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730341-600-birds-love-of-cigarette-butts-in-nests-has-two-sides-for-chicks/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730341-600-birds-lo...
- undersuit 9y agoI never said there weren't. I specifically worded my comment to suggest that the benefits might outweigh the harm.
- anfractuosity 9y agoAlso http://www.thecrowbox.com/ http://www.thecrowbox.com/ were they apparently trained captive crows to pickup coins in return for food, there's also a TED talk the guy behind it gave. I've briefly looked at the 'Crowded Cities' page, I'm still not sure how the crows realise they get food though for cigarette butts? Does it rely on them randomly dropping something in the pot, and then getting food and continuing to do it?
- frostwhale 9y agoI think this is where the part "tells other crows about it" line might come in. Perhaps they're hoping it works that way and they just train a few crows? This does seeem like a pretty important training point though.
- jldugger 9y agoDidn't it turn out that guy faked his results?
- vanattab 9y agoI don't think I would go so far as to say he faked his data. But he did intentional misrepresent his work to the press and during the TED talk to boost his own status/ego. https://www.google.com/amp/s/corvidresearch.blog/2015/03/12/a-scientists-thoughts-on-the-crow-box/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/corvidresearch.blog/2015/03/12/...
- MikeTheGreat 9y agoI was wondering that too. My brief reading of the web page didn't reveal anything, but I might have missed it. I wonder if humans could bootstrap the process by modeling the behaviour? Crows are supposed to be mega-smart, so maybe they'd pick up on that and emulate us. Maybe you could start by having a bin of 'butts next to the Crowbar so they can get some early, quick reinforcement, then when they run out they'll move on to harder challenges. Is there someone here who's done enough video game design that they could comment on how lessons learned from training / reinforcing players in games could be leveraged here?
- smcameron 9y agoI seem to remember back in the 70s and early 80s, cigarette butts being everywhere was a problem, then for awhile, they disappeared, like smokers got trained not to throw them on the ground. But lately, they seem to be back, like new smokers came up without remembering what it was like in the 70s and 80s, and they just throw them on the ground again.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nickpeterson 9y agoCouldn't we just force cigarette companies to make cigarettes biodegrade in the rain? Seriously, they're basically all chemicals anyways. After a few years the problem would vanish.
- glitcher 9y agoThis may also train smokers who do throw away their butts to instead think it's ok to throw them anywhere.
- ceedan 9y agoYeah... the callousness of smokers and their littering is unacceptable. I understand that throwing your cigarette in the trash can be a fire hazard sometimes, but put the cigarette out and throw it out. Some smokers just seem to love flicking that still-burning cigarette into the road like it's no big deal.
- major505 9y agoIn this case, you just smash the flasme in the floor and then throw in the trash. There is minimum hazard of the thing catch fire, specially if it has a cover. Many places have designated trash for butts. Where I work, thare is a company that collect these cans, and transform in paper. After 2 years they are now being proffiteble. But as a smoker, I fell terrible when there is a trash can in the place, but there are lots of butts in the floor. Makes me mad.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago> Many places have designated trash for butts. Which can still catch on fire.
- andymcsherry 9y agoSmoker in San Francisco here. I've thought about this quite a bit and here's my dilemma. 1. It is illegal to smoke indoors 2. San Francisco has made it illegal to have ash trays outdoors 3. Cigarettes set trash on fire so it's not acceptable to put them in the bin 4. Cigarettes have a tax on every pack earmarked to fund street clean-up I'd prefer to not throw my cigarettes on the ground, but I've been left with no real alternative. Also, I've specifically paid a tax that should fund that clean-up.
- deleted 9y ago
- hanselot 9y agoBreaking News: Murder of Crows Commit Murder. You won't believe why!
- IgorPartola 9y agoOr you know, we could get rid of cigarettes. Oh wait but what will happen to all the crow jobs?!
- synicalx 9y agoDidn't work so well for alcohol, drugs, or prostitution unfortunately. But at least I guess it would stop people smoking in public.
- gspetr 9y ago> Didn't work so well for alcohol, drugs, or prostitution unfortunately. I'm pretty sure it will work out once the surveillance methods are more advanced and ubiquitous. And no, I don't think it's a good thing.
- synicalx 9y agoGood point, we've come a long way since prohibition times for better and for worse.
- belzebub 9y agoI'm too lazy to build this myself but a similar system to encourage pet owners to dispose of pet waste at the park by exchanging dog poop for a treat.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- spaceribs 9y agoBack in college I did a paper on if this was ethical or not for my bioethics class, I warn people to really take a step back from the positive possibilities with something like this and understand that these are wild animals being trained to become slaves to benefit our human failings and appetites. I would definitely draw a line between this kind of domestication and the domestication of animals by our ancestors for our own survival. This is trash created by humans, and the human responsible should be the asshole who picks it up. At that point, we're the ones that should be domesticated, not crows.
- tomtheengineer 9y agoThe other aspect of this is that the crows could become reliant on this mechanism as a food source and be unable to survive on their own once it is removed from the environment (or runs out of food).
- __s 9y agoThe crows aren't punished for not exhibiting this behavior. Positive reinforcement training is distinctively different than negative reinforcement training. Slavery is the latter
- spaceribs 9y agoI really don't think it matters if it's positive or negative reinforcement. You are making their trained survival dependent on a contraption which accepts trash for their services, that doesn't sound like room and board to you?
- diego_moita 9y ago> that doesn't sound like room and board to you? No, sounds like a job: do a task, get a reward. You do it, janitors do it. If the crows want...
- spaceribs 9y agoIf you're talking about jobs, most humans have a plethora of survival options. Once a wild animal is trained to an easy single source of food, it prevents them from naturally diversifying their diet to prevent starvation, removing that natural challenge could be deadly. This isn't just about doing a task and getting a reward, this is about addiction.
- ceedan 9y agoLOL I had this same exact idea once but with pigeons... I can't wait to show my wife/stupid-idea-confidant this. I love it
- korethr 9y agoI wounder if this would work for other corvids as well, like say, ravens or magpies. As I understand, magpies are also rather intelligent. I can imagine crows and magpies getting into fights over who gets to take the cigarette butt to the food dispensing machine.
- dTal 9y agoThey're smart enough to find cigarette butts wherever they are, not just the ground. I predict you'd see a lot of crows stealing lit cigarettes and emptying ashtrays etc.
- KGIII 9y agoCrows are really smart. If anyone is interested, here's a PBS Nature doc about crows. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hBJKPwIFzDI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hBJKPwIFzDI They even transfer knowledge between each other and through generations.
- retox 9y agoAs a thought experiment, imagine if this mutually beneficial behaviour went on for hundreds/thousands of years to the point that the animals lost their insincts for hunting/finding food independently. It would be a disaster if suddently humans changed the conditions of the relationship by, for example, outlawing cigarettes in favour of vaping. Does anyone know of any real-world examples of this happening? The only ones I can think of are the domestication of cats, dogs and pigs, but left to their own devices those animals revert to their natural behaviour fairly quickly. Edit: I found this quote unbelievable; "Cigarettes are the most littered item on earth. Worldwide about 4.5 trillion cigarettes are littered each year." That's 650 for every person on the planet.
- barrkel 9y agoConsider our cells; they revert to their natural behaviour of reproducing without limit, in the form of cancer, despite 100s of millions of years of evolution.
- tzahola 9y agoExcept for pugs. They can barely breath without surgical help from humans. They also frequently lose their eyes due to recurring infections, because their eyes are too big for their eyesockets. But they are cuuuuuuute :3
- darkstar999 9y ago> I found this quote unbelievable 4.5 trillion does sound like a lot. One source said there were 5.8 trillion cigarettes smoked globally in 2014. There's no way most of those get littered.... right?
- dragonwriter 9y ago> One source said there were 5.8 trillion cigarettes smoked globally in 2014. There's no way most of those get littered.... right? Given my observation of people's smoking habits and the locations (or, mostly, not) of public facilities for the disposal of cigarettes, I'd say it's quite plausible that most got literates but only between 1/5 - 1/4 were smoked in a place where there was convenient access for disposal by someone who cared to use it.
- bogomipz 9y agoI wonder if this will be the beginning of crow-sourcing.
- ipsum2 9y ago> When we started doing research we found out there is a guy in the States that is teaching crows to collect coins. His name is Joshua Klein. It's commonly agreed that this never worked successfully in the wild. > In that correction the NY Times states that the experiments never succeeded in teaching the crows to drop the coins into the slot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Klein#Crows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Klein#Crows > Klein did get a professor at Binghamton to help him try it out twice in Ithaca, with assistance from a Binghamton graduate student, and it was not a success. Corvid experts who have since been interviewed have said that Klein’s machine is unlikely to work as intended. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12letters-t-CORRECTIONS-1.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12letters-t-CORRE...
- joe_the_user 9y agoCoins seem like they'd very difficult for a bird to handle - they're heavy for their volume and can't be bitten into.
- smegel 9y agoI take it this hasn't be proven or demonstrated yet?
- vortico 9y agoI think this idea is really cool, but monitization might be an issue. No individual or private company, except those with enormous sites like Boeing and Google would be potential customers, because the decrease of cigarette butts would be spread over possibly a mile radius (interested to see what the actual statistics would be though). Of course, the idea then is to target municipalities of dense downtown areas. Is buying, maintaining, powering, and repairing this machine worth the handful of cigarette butts that would otherwise be washed into a drainage ditch or picked up by a street sweeper?
- md2be 9y agoWhy aren't we ticketing / fining people who litter in this way? To all the hippocrite smoking environmentalists, I say F U.
- elihu 9y agoI wonder what other tasks we could train species to do in exchange for something they want? For instance, cane toads are invasive and toxic enough that predators usually leave them alone. Supposing that cane toads can be deposited in a receptacle by some bird who wouldn't otherwise eat it without being harmed by the toxin, could they be used to eradicate cane toads in places where they're not wanted in exchange for food?
- Eric_WVGG 9y agoA fellow trained his cat to "hunt" whiffle balls around the apartment so it would have a chance to, well, act like a cat for its food. Sort of. It's neat, anyway. http://benjaminmillam.com/cat-geek/monkey-the-cat-hunts-for-dinner/ http://benjaminmillam.com/cat-geek/monkey-the-cat-hunts-for-...
- aaron695 9y agoCrows have 'learned' to eat toads. They just flip them and eat the stomach. http://www.odditycentral.com/animals/a-fascinating-story-of-exploding-toads-and-clever-crows.html http://www.odditycentral.com/animals/a-fascinating-story-of-...
- inuniverse 9y agoCool and thought-provoking idea! I was struck by this statement however: Right now we are building our first Crowbar. All different parts are working and ready for assembly. Next step: testing with Crows. Why not start with crow testing? That's the "Talk to customers" of this project [0]. Instead, they started off with something we can be sure of with today's technology: machine recognising cigarette butts. [0] Technically talking to city authorities should be the first step, but I couldn't tell whether this was a for-profit project.
- carapace 9y agoMy evil plan was to make peanut-butter vending machines for raccoons. I figured you'd have to trap a few and show them how it worked then release them to spread the word, so to speak.