3 ms·

Then came the crows: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/startups/news/a28543/startup-trains-crows-to-pick-up-trash/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/tec

• EGreg 9y ago
  Amazing ... now we will have crow butlers picking up cigarette butts. Not a problem in NYC by the way ;-)
• glenstein 9y ago
  Do we know much about the reliability of crow behavioral science (or whatever the field is called, if it has a name)? Josh Klein, the fellow who popularized the ideas of crows being trained by a machine to retrieve things for reward, turned out to be extremely misleading[1] about the circumstances and reliability of his research. Granted, Joshua Klein is not connected to the startup in the popular mechanics link, but interestingly, that startup does cite Klein as their source of inspiration[2] on their website. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/magazine/14Ideas-section4B-t-003.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/magazine/14Ideas-section4B... (see editors note) 2. http://www.crowdedcities.com http://www.crowdedcities.com
• bmc7505 9y ago
  How does it tell the difference between a crow it has seen before and a new crow? Would it just dispense free peanuts to all crows?
  • alexozer 9y ago
    It dispenses in response to cigarettes, not crows (at least after training), so it wouldn't really matter I don't think.
    • thomastjeffery 9y ago
      > (at least after training) That is the question. The article described "training" as progressing from free peanuts to peanuts for butts.
      • shawabawa3 9y ago
        Maybe after the initial training period they just rely on crows learning from each other