3 ms·

> we don’t need to trade with them because they have nothing of value and if they did we could just take it; anything they can do we can do better, and we can

> we don’t need to trade with them because they have nothing of value and if they did we could just take it; anything they can do we can do better, and we can just walk all over them. Why negotiate when you can steal? If we could communicate with ants, we would do all manner of business with them. Everything from pest control (defend our crops in exchange for the corpses and perhaps extra sugar instead of using pesticides) to archeological exploration to health and chemical detection (ants can detect cancers in your urine) could benefit from ant services. Could use them for microplastic cleanup too. Really, this applies to many species. Fisheries could certainly benefit from the knowledge of dolphins and whales. Birds could work with us to clear up litter. They already do this with crows to some extent. Imagine being able to partner with beehives to direct pollination. So the barrier is that we cannot communicate with them, not that they have nothing of value to offer.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
I was thinking of our effective "trade" with honey bees (for honey and for pollination). Sure, we could do either without them, but it's a lot more efficient to do these things with them.
Raicuparta 3y ago
That's an interesting way to think about it. I can try coming up with a counter-argument: We can probably train ants to do those things, that would be a way of communicating with them. It would just be slow, inefficient, and unreliable, so we put our resources into methods we can more directly control and improve. The same can happen from this magical future AI's perspective: why use silly humans when other artificial alternatives are more likely to succeed.
jprete 3y ago
I'm curious if you know that the author says very similar things? The author points out several services that ants could trade, such as cleaning high vertical walls, or finding and sealing extremely small cracks in buildings. The author also shares your conclusion that the obstacle is communication.
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  Mea culpa. I read the bit about not trading with ants and then having seen the arguments before, thought it was heading down that same path. My fault.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago

I was thinking of our effective "trade" with honey bees (for honey and for pollination). Sure, we could do either without them, but it's a lot more efficient to do these things with them.

Raicuparta 3y ago

That's an interesting way to think about it. I can try coming up with a counter-argument: We can probably train ants to do those things, that would be a way of communicating with them. It would just be slow, inefficient, and unreliable, so we put our resources into methods we can more directly control and improve. The same can happen from this magical future AI's perspective: why use silly humans when other artificial alternatives are more likely to succeed.

jprete 3y ago

I'm curious if you know that the author says very similar things? The author points out several services that ants could trade, such as cleaning high vertical walls, or finding and sealing extremely small cracks in buildings. The author also shares your conclusion that the obstacle is communication.

MattGaiser 3y ago
Mea culpa. I read the bit about not trading with ants and then having seen the arguments before, thought it was heading down that same path. My fault.