4 ms·

Bunny is a neat dog... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEa46rlHqEP6ClWitFd2QOQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEa46rlHqEP6ClWitFd2QOQ The vocal apparatus is

by shagie 5y ago

Bunny is a neat dog... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEa46rlHqEP6ClWitFd2QOQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEa46rlHqEP6ClWitFd2QOQ The vocal apparatus is not there, but there is certainly more cognition than what people think dogs have (there's a question that I wonder if language enables thought or if thought enables language) And this is even something that a cat can do (not as much language skills, but there's thought going on) https://www.youtube.com/c/BilliSpeaks https://www.youtube.com/c/BilliSpeaks

qnsi 5y ago
I saw a lot of videos about this Bunny dog on tiktok, but discarded it as a gimmick, not believing it's real. Your comment motivated me to look into it more (30 seconds of time). This NYT article at least does not discredit it [0]. Have you looked more into it? Do you think it would be useful to train your dog to do it? [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/style/bunny-the-dog-animal-communication.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/style/bunny-the-dog-anima...
- shagie 5y ago
  With my cat (I've got the buttons, haven't done anything with them yet) its would be useful to find out if he wants food, attention, or is complaining about the water bowl or litter box. Even being able to distinguish those would be a "win". The Bunny video that I still find the most useful communication is https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M
pessimizer 5y ago
I'm not so certain. Seems like the owner is doing a lot of work to make sense out of those utterances. I'd like to see Bunny say what he's about to do, then do it. Or watch his owner do something with something, then describe it. edit: or just have a conversation of any kind longer than a 2 minute video. Or one without the owner in the room, where she talks back with the dog using the same board. That would at least be amenable to Turing. edit2: here's a test - put headphones on the owner and block her vision of the board. Sometimes pipe in the actual buttons the dog is pressing, other times pipe in arbitrary words. See if the owner makes sense of the random words.
- shagie 5y ago
  The larger word array is... yea, it allows for a lot more interpretation of variation of intent and interpetation. Consider this older one where there weren't as many words - https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M and https://youtu.be/FPC6ElzSdxM https://youtu.be/FPC6ElzSdxM Or for billie the cat - https://youtu.be/DiuQqgTw-jY https://youtu.be/DiuQqgTw-jY The point with these is that there is language related thought going on there and an attempt to communicate from the dog (or cat) to the human.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    I'm trying, but I don't see it at all with these examples. 1) just seemed like random pressing until the dog pressed "paw", then the owner repeated loudly "something in your paw?" The dog presented its paw, then the owner decided "hurt" "stranger" "paw" was some sort of splinter she found there. The dog wasn't even limping. 2) I didn't get any sense of the presses relating to anything the dog was doing, and since the owner was repeating loudly the thing she wanted the dog to find, I was a bit surprised. Then the dog presses "sound," the owner connects this with a sound I can't hear, then they go outside to look for something I can't see. Billie the Cat: I simply saw no connection between the button presses and anything the cat did. The cat pressed "outside" but didn't want to go outside. The cat presses "ouch noise" and the owner asks if a sound I didn't hear hurt her ears. Then the cat presses "pets" and the owner asks if the cat wants a pet? The cat presses "noise" and the owner continues the monologue apologizing for the painful noise and offering to buy her cat a pet. Sorry to recount most of the thing, but I don't get it at all. ----- Not trying to debunk talking pets, but I'm not seeing anything here. I at least expected the dog to be smart enough to press particular buttons for particular things, but I suspect the buttons are too close together for it to reliably distinguish them from each other. I'd be pretty easy to convince that you could teach a dog to press a button to go outside, a different button when they wanted a treat, and a different button when they wanted their belly rubbed. In fact I'd be tough to convince that you couldn't teach a dog to do that. Whatever's being claimed here, however, I'm not seeing. ----- edit: to add a little more, I'm not even sure that *I* could reliably do what they're claiming the dog is doing. To remember which button is which without being able to read is like touch typing, but worse because the buttons seem to be mounted on re-arrangeable puzzle pieces. Maybe I could associate the color of those pieces with words, but that would only cover the center button on each piece. If a dog were using specific buttons for language (or if I were doing the same thing) I'd expect the dog to press a lot of buttons, until he heard the sound he was looking for, then to press that button over and over. Not to just walk straight to a button and press. I think the cat just presses the buttons when it wants the owner to come, and presses them again when the owner says something high pitched at the end and looks at it in expectation.

by shagie 5y ago

qnsi 5y ago

I saw a lot of videos about this Bunny dog on tiktok, but discarded it as a gimmick, not believing it's real. Your comment motivated me to look into it more (30 seconds of time). This NYT article at least does not discredit it [0]. Have you looked more into it? Do you think it would be useful to train your dog to do it? [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/style/bunny-the-dog-animal-communication.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/style/bunny-the-dog-anima...

shagie 5y ago
With my cat (I've got the buttons, haven't done anything with them yet) its would be useful to find out if he wants food, attention, or is complaining about the water bowl or litter box. Even being able to distinguish those would be a "win". The Bunny video that I still find the most useful communication is https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M

pessimizer 5y ago

I'm not so certain. Seems like the owner is doing a lot of work to make sense out of those utterances. I'd like to see Bunny say what he's about to do, then do it. Or watch his owner do something with something, then describe it. edit: or just have a conversation of any kind longer than a 2 minute video. Or one without the owner in the room, where she talks back with the dog using the same board. That would at least be amenable to Turing. edit2: here's a test - put headphones on the owner and block her vision of the board. Sometimes pipe in the actual buttons the dog is pressing, other times pipe in arbitrary words. See if the owner makes sense of the random words.

shagie 5y ago
The larger word array is... yea, it allows for a lot more interpretation of variation of intent and interpetation. Consider this older one where there weren't as many words - https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M https://youtu.be/6MMGmRVal6M and https://youtu.be/FPC6ElzSdxM https://youtu.be/FPC6ElzSdxM Or for billie the cat - https://youtu.be/DiuQqgTw-jY https://youtu.be/DiuQqgTw-jY The point with these is that there is language related thought going on there and an attempt to communicate from the dog (or cat) to the human.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  I'm trying, but I don't see it at all with these examples. 1) just seemed like random pressing until the dog pressed "paw", then the owner repeated loudly "something in your paw?" The dog presented its paw, then the owner decided "hurt" "stranger" "paw" was some sort of splinter she found there. The dog wasn't even limping. 2) I didn't get any sense of the presses relating to anything the dog was doing, and since the owner was repeating loudly the thing she wanted the dog to find, I was a bit surprised. Then the dog presses "sound," the owner connects this with a sound I can't hear, then they go outside to look for something I can't see. Billie the Cat: I simply saw no connection between the button presses and anything the cat did. The cat pressed "outside" but didn't want to go outside. The cat presses "ouch noise" and the owner asks if a sound I didn't hear hurt her ears. Then the cat presses "pets" and the owner asks if the cat wants a pet? The cat presses "noise" and the owner continues the monologue apologizing for the painful noise and offering to buy her cat a pet. Sorry to recount most of the thing, but I don't get it at all. ----- Not trying to debunk talking pets, but I'm not seeing anything here. I at least expected the dog to be smart enough to press particular buttons for particular things, but I suspect the buttons are too close together for it to reliably distinguish them from each other. I'd be pretty easy to convince that you could teach a dog to press a button to go outside, a different button when they wanted a treat, and a different button when they wanted their belly rubbed. In fact I'd be tough to convince that you couldn't teach a dog to do that. Whatever's being claimed here, however, I'm not seeing. ----- edit: to add a little more, I'm not even sure that *I* could reliably do what they're claiming the dog is doing. To remember which button is which without being able to read is like touch typing, but worse because the buttons seem to be mounted on re-arrangeable puzzle pieces. Maybe I could associate the color of those pieces with words, but that would only cover the center button on each piece. If a dog were using specific buttons for language (or if I were doing the same thing) I'd expect the dog to press a lot of buttons, until he heard the sound he was looking for, then to press that button over and over. Not to just walk straight to a button and press. I think the cat just presses the buttons when it wants the owner to come, and presses them again when the owner says something high pitched at the end and looks at it in expectation.