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A very interesting read, which describes how for ~50 years the community was lead astray by a seemingly simple oversight: studying dead animals instead of livin
by osamagirl69 4y ago
A very interesting read, which describes how for ~50 years the community was lead astray by a seemingly simple oversight: studying dead animals instead of living ones!
>Charles Darwin theorized that monkeys had the vocal anatomy needed for speech, but lacked the necessary neural mechanisms.
>This was the most popular hypothesis until 1969 [when] Lieberman studied the vocal anatomy of a monkey corpse and concluded that other primates could not produce as many vowels as humans because of the position of their larynxes [which] cemented the idea that a descended larynx is a prerequisite for speech.
>Towards the end of the 20th century, evolutionary biologist W. Tecumseh Fitch realized a crucial fact – all the existing evidence was based on the anatomy of dead primates. Surprised that this had not been done before, Fitch used x-ray imaging to study the vocal tracts of live animals while they were voicing sounds. He was amazed to observe that their larynxes at rest remained high and then descended during vocalization to a position very similar to the human larynx.
>All these studies indicate that apes have all the anatomical characteristics necessary for speech. The reason they don’t is purely neural. Humans have much better control of the larynx, not because of its position, but because of the neural connections that connect it to the brain. Parrots don’t even have a larynx, but they have wonderful control of their speech organ, which enables them to articulate intelligible words and phrases.
Fascinating
- nico 4y ago[flagged]
- HopenHeyHi 4y ago[flagged]
- nico 4y agoWho is this talking to me?
- HopenHeyHi 4y agoOh, my God, I was wrong, It was Earth all along. You finally made a monkey...
- traject_ 4y agoThere's no reason to believe that LLMs are necessarily similar to humans. Just think of flight; both birds and planes can fly despite being very different. It's understandable that because humans are our main reference for intelligence that we see LLMs speaking language as a proof of similarity but there's no concrete reason to assume that.
- Archelaos 4y agoHere is a cognitive experiment were chimpanzees perform better than humans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKvX9PPmI-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKvX9PPmI-Q
- chatmasta 4y agoThere's something about watching other primates interact with screens that just feels so uncanny. It's an almost humbling experience, seeing how much they look like us tapping and scrolling. The only difference seems to be that we think we understand more of what we're looking at on the screen... but do we really?
- jamiek88 4y ago> Do we really? Yes. We do. Significantly more. It’s our only power. We aren’t stronger or faster or more vicious, we cannot fly or breed dozens of humans at a time or puke honey. We can’t swim the ocean depths or swing through the trees. But we sure can think, understand and create. For better or worse. I’m all for not underestimating animals. They are sentient like us. But not at the cost of dismissing the human animal.
- wizzwizz4 4y ago> It’s our only power. We're also pretty good long-distance runners.
- astrange 4y agoWe have very good color eyesight, are unusually flexible when it comes to weather, are pretty omnivorous and disease resistant, and we're absolutely unbeatable endurance runners. IIRC we actually smell as well as dogs too, if we get down to floor level.
- rcme 4y agoThat’s not the conclusion at all. The article says monkeys can understand and produce words (via signs). They can’t talk because they don’t have control of their larynx. They’re mute essentially.
- nico 4y agoWas just riffing on the comment that was replying to. So is the control issue in the larynx or in the brain? And if it was the brain, could some sort of AI system do brain <> larynx communication for the monkeys? (Via electrodes maybe?)
- xoac 4y agoYes, we just put some AI via electrodes into the monkeys. If we can also add some blockchain, I think we'll have a winner. Let's circle back Monday on this idea, I'd like to pick your brain some more.
- haliskerbas 4y agoYou're mocking the parent but isn't this what most BCIs do? Electrodes + signal processing to estimate some output.
- Retric 4y agoNot really, BCIs are still more about teaching the user to make a recognizable signal vs interpreting something that already exists.
- GauntletWizard 4y agoYes, but Brain-Computer Interfaces are not currently an especially advanced field of study. We don't have the precision needed to do any of that as currently stands.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
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- nico 4y ago[flagged]
- PKop 4y agoA few simple replies to your statement and you fall apart like this? Have you never engaged in an argument or what?
- nico 4y agoWhat answer would help you the most?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- aylmao 4y agoOr, you know, maybe your comment is the conclusion of the article at all.
- nico 4y agoCould you care to explain why you expected the comment to be about the conclusion of the article instead of an opinion about the comment it was replying to?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> human = monkey + LLM This is an old tradition in popular science, replacing the humans are animals with souls analogy with the current fad. (Analogies to clockworks, printed circuits, et cetera.) They’re wrong because they’re oversimplifying for pithiness. Not explanatory value.
- nico 4y agoWhich words have explanatory value? Do models that make abstractions and analogies have explanatory value? Do memes have explanatory value? Do quotes have explanatory value?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Do models that make abstractions and analogies have explanatory value? Yes, this is science. If it makes useful predictions, it has explanatory value. If it doesn’t, it’s cocktail party and TED talk fodder.
- nico 4y agoWhich one of those has more influence in the world?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Which one of those has more influence in the world? You’re asking whether science or popular pseudoscience has more influence?
- jamiek88 4y agoHmmm. As I type this reply on my device powered by a semi conductor that wouldn’t exist without our knowledge of quantum physics I’m gonna say science.
- nico 4y agoAs I type this from a free country that allows me unrestricted access to worldwide media, and affords me the right to express my opinion freely publicly, I would say politics. We all have our own points of view. Yours is certainly an astute observation. But it is not the only one.
- chatmasta 4y agoI've also been wondering this. Can we train an LLM on dolphin noises? I suspect the problem is the training data. If we don't know what the dolphin squeaks mean, we can't really filter the training data to include only meaningful "language." But I do wonder how far we could get by just dumping a bunch of dolphin recordings into an LLM and getting it to make the same noises... The other side of that same problem is that we would have no way of knowing whether it's working. Even if it could "communicate" perfectly, we would have no way of understanding it, aside from watching real dolphins interact with it. But maybe we could build an artificial dolphin, load an LLM into it, and drop it in a pool with real dolphins... just to see what happens...
- holoduke 4y agoYou can use it to identify patterns and other interesting aspects. First steps in understanding a language without any reference.
- tonymillion 4y agoI feel the only recognisable words we’d decode is a farewell and some kind of gratitude about food…
- smegger001 4y agopossible also greeting, demand for food, and telling us to piss off.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoAnd probably hitting on us. Dolphins are horny creatures.
- nico 4y agoThey say the brain is the OG sex organ. And dolphins have waay bigger brains than humans… adds up.
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- alex_young 4y agoI’m more inclined to believe human + LLM = monkey
- bilsbie 4y agoNow do dogs. Are they missing any anatomy for speech or is that also neural?
- ramraj07 4y agoThe fact that parrots and humans with different anatomies can speak means it’s likely just neural.
- engineer_22 4y agoI'm amazed at the range of vocalizations from huskies
- eyelidlessness 4y agoMy chihuahua-pit mix has such a range I often describe it as “singing the songs of her people”. Anyway, what qualifies as speech is very subjective and generally anthropomorphic. I understand what my pup is saying almost all of the time, which wouldn’t qualify it as talking by most standards but it’s plain as day to me.
- Swizec 4y agoYa, humans are really good at pattern recognition. I can understand what my parrot (who can’t speak) is communicating. But did I learn my parrot’s patterns or is he intending to communicate with me? Hard to say. If he is intending to communicate, did he just learn what works through operant conditioning? Hard to say. If it is just operant conditioning (for both of us) and a pinch of antropomorphizing from me, does that even matter when the end result is that we are successfully communicating? Hard to say. Whatever it is, it works. We can’t have a philosophical discussion, but he can usually get what he needs from me and I can usually understand what he wants and get him to change course of action when needed or get him to perform tricks on command.
- aaronbrethorst 4y agoHaha, meanwhile my chihuahua-pit mix only communicates by trembling, booping, performative sneezing, huffing (as opposed to a woof), sometimes grumbling, and yelling at the mailman. Mostly trembles.
- 6502nerdface 4y agoFun, irrelevant fact: William Tecumseh Fitch is a direct descendant of General William Tecumseh Sherman of the US Civil War.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoHuman exceptionalism has poisoned so many studies. My pet-theory why primates do not vocalize is that the neural difference is not even that cemented, it has to be some difference at the language acquiring stage as babys and children, were one human pattern matching center for sound fires constantly, acquiring the language "keys" and theirs dont. And it all cascades from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation It would be really fascinating, to help them acquiring language and uplift them. Maybe its even mammal universal applyable.
- andirk 4y agoI like that theory but the question still stands that why can parrots do it? And they're no monkey
- timeon 4y agoWhy can't English speakers pronounce R?
- distcs 4y agoI don't see how this is relevant or even correct. English speakers certainly can pronounce R.
- vintermann 4y agoOne sort of R, sure. But native English speakers often have trouble with the "voiced alveolar trill" R which is present in many other European languages, unless they speak one of the less common English dialects where it is used.
- Timwi 4y ago“have trouble with” is a far cry from “can't”.
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- user070223 4y agoI'm pretty sure descended larynx is not prequisite for producing vowels. Vowels are merely overtones which occurs because the waves generated in the vocal folds(with a charachtrized fundamental frequency) travel the vocal tract in 3d, which causes destructive interference for most frequencies except those with constructive interference (overtones / formants) When humans move that tongue and lips we basically change the vocal tract shape which changes the overtones, the larynx is behind the lips and behind/in the back of the tongue anyway.
- lupire 4y ago"require" is a fuzzy term. If you force your lips and tongue to stay in place, you can get partial intelligible vowel sounds from your larynx, and feel your larynx changing as vowels change.