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Chimpanzees act as 'engineers', choosing materials to make tools
- butterlover 2y agoI always say I'm only here because i'm "smarter than a monkey and cheaper than a robot" and boy has that value proposition changed recently.
- docmechanic 2y ago'Researchers have discovered that chimpanzees living in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania employ a degree of engineering when making their tools, deliberately choosing plants that provide materials that produce more flexible tools for termite fishing.'
- upghost 2y agoI thought this would be more relatable, like, "chimpanzee engineers found pretending to managers about estimates, chimpanzee managers found pretending to listen".
- caseyy 2y ago“Chimpanzee closes Jira ticket, with acceptance criteria met but product not functional.”
- formerly_proven 2y ago“Chimpanzee ticks unmet acceptance criteria and closes ticket, knowing those with power don’t care and those who care don’t have power.”
- upghost 2y ago"Chimpanzee vocalizations found to be inversely proportional to productivity and directly proportional to time spent in meetings about lack of productivity"
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- yyyk 2y agoThese fellows have all the juicy (chimpanzee) office gossip: https://web.archive.org/web/20181204052813/https://www.newtechusa.com/ppi/main.asp https://web.archive.org/web/20181204052813/https://www.newte...
- jcims 2y ago"Chimpanzees record their goals in four domains aligned with company values as part of a mandatory HR exercise."
- upghost 2y ago"Chimpanzees stare into mirror and mistake reflection for AGI. Chimp Altman says we just need to invest 7 trillion bananas into a bigger mirror."
- musicale 2y agoIn double-blind experiments across multiple companies, chimpanzee managers were found to be largely statistically indistinguishable from incumbent (presumably human) company managers, except in areas where the chimps exhibited superior skills and performance.
- KineticLensman 2y agofruits: lower, tastier, juicier. Choose two
- weard_beard 2y agoThe ones on the higher branches are for crows to pluck. Maybe a few of the best will fall when a storm comes but by and large these rot in the sun. It’s strange how much animals love fruit. All fruit.
- HPsquared 2y agoFruit loves animals. That's why it makes itself so tasty, bright-coloured and so on.
- gridder 2y agoThe Oriental Persimmon tastes a lot worse if the seed is not good, the good ones are less bitter and more orange than yellow. Unlike other fruits this is not related to its level of ripeness.
- quinndexter 2y agoI assumed it was the fructose. (*not an animal/fruit/love expert)
- xandrius 2y agoLower and tastier, thank you!
- amelius 2y agoYes but they make a lot of fuzzy decisions, so they are better compared with e.g. alchemists or deep learning researchers.
- upghost 2y ago> or deep learning researchers. Priceless XD
- dapperdrake 2y agoThe chimps or the other living beings involved in the study? Co-stochastic co-parrots is where it's at.
- gsf_emergency_2 2y agoHere is an ape adjusting the recording camera on her own https://youtu.be/dHmRLpNQBJU&t=39s https://youtu.be/dHmRLpNQBJU&t=39s Also https://youtu.be/dHmRLpNQBJU&t=26s https://youtu.be/dHmRLpNQBJU&t=26s
- jagged-chisel 2y ago“Adjusting” or just touching the thing she’s seen the humans touch?
- gsf_emergency_2 2y agoTouche! though it might mean experimenters need to be nearly as careful with these apes as with human subjects.
- abridges6532 2y agoHomo sapiens also make a lot of fuzzy decisions.
- saghm 2y agoHonestly that makes sense; they _are_ a lot fuzzier than humans generally. Maybe they might figure out how to use a tool to shave?
- weard_beard 2y agoLet me know when a chimp publishes in science daily. Bonus points if it’s written in feces.
- xandrius 2y agoWhy do we always try to use human metrics to judge other species?
- oh_my_goodness 2y agoIf we don't use some metric we're no better than animals.
- weard_beard 2y agoWe aren’t. We’re worse. We’re animals with nuclear bombs. You can say it it doesn’t matter but you can’t tell me it’s not true.
- oh_my_goodness 2y agoThe bombs are real. We really are built on an animal substrate, at least. On the other hand I think very few 'nonhuman animals' could have the discussion we're having right now. Maybe none of them. Supposedly the Romans had some horrible bullshit about "half beast, half god." To me even that superstitious nonsense is better than the heuristics we have today for describing what a human is. I agree that we can be worse than animals. It also seems clear that we can be better than animals.
- weard_beard 2y agoI want to answer the question of whether our pursuits are meaningful. I want to say yes, but with the caveat that we don’t deserve the outcome as a sick society Creationists love to use the human eye as proof of a higher plan. A semi useless collection of structures independently but a powerful system. I see the same in all of us. Let’s make an eye.
- dudeinjapan 2y ago[dead]
- alecco 2y agoAtrocious clickbait title. Chimps were found to prefer flexible stick sources to get ants. That's it.
- mofunnyman 2y agohttps://archive.is/SNMLR https://archive.is/SNMLR
- bell-cot 2y agoUp next, a story about how ants act as 'engineers' - choosing soft-enough-to-dig ground, that is not waterlogged, to build their nests. After that, maybe a story about plant 'engineers', growing toward the sun.
- lucianbr 2y agoAll the while programmers are not engineers but craftsmen, because... we don't use slide rules or something.
- Avicebron 2y agoI think it's more that we don't follow ethical rules or something
- bobsmooth 2y agoIt's because there's no liability. In my country you need liability insurance to be an engineer.
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- bee_rider 2y agoIn the US we have the concept of a Professional Engineering license, but most people who get engineering degrees don’t end up needing one. Around here is it more like… you need a license for your signature to mean anything while surveying land, or something like that.
- bobsmooth 2y agoIn my country you can't promote yourself as an engineer unless you have a license. You also technically can't have a job title with engineer in it but that's not really enforced.
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- Avicebron 2y agoDamn we gotta ante up, if they're taking away my title of engineer and giving it to chimps, guess I'll just find a job where they can issue me "Doctor" job title. "Doctor and Principal Cybersecurity Engineer" sounds good.
- HPsquared 2y agoFirst time?
- Aperocky 2y agoThere are no "they", it's all "we"
- Avicebron 2y agoYikes, I've been really slacking on my raises
- bee_rider 2y agoReally coding is more about trying to reason about overly-complex systems that you don’t fully understand for the most part. Legacy cruft with non-obvious dependencies. Poor designs. So, “code doctors” sorta works. Or “code lawyers.”
- jagged-chisel 2y agoI think you just need a PhD in hand drawing and you’re set for life.
- anticensor 2y agoMore like a Prof.Art. in hand drawing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ggambetta 2y agoThe original code monkeys!
- gostsamo 2y agoNext trend in linkedin ads "we are looking for a 10x chimpanzee".
- nurettin 2y agoGreat at material science, shit flinging and attacking your face!
- 3np 2y agoActual study: https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)00419-5 https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)00419-5
- bigbacaloa 2y ago[dead]
- friendlyprezz 2y ago[flagged]
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- oh_my_goodness 2y agoThis is prior art. Everybody knows that engineers and chimpanzees share a lot of behavior patterns.
- OnlyMortal 2y agothrows faeces Nonsense! Source: Engineer
- mmooss 2y agoTwo overlooked aspect of the research: First, an object of the research is pre-human ancestors' tool use: > Physical evidence of early hominin perishable tools is scarce. However, it is reasonable to assume the mechanical constraints surrounding tool use and manufacture have remained somewhat constant. Using a functional framework to understand the technical capabilities of extant hominoid tool users presents a novel approach to predict the perishable tool-using capabilities of our earliest relatives. Note that the Paleolithic, the first period of stone tools, started ~2.58 - 3.3 mya (million years ago); stone can be durable since X mya and we have lots of evidence of that. But our evolutionary line split from the chimps' line ~7 mya (though remember the 7 mya shared ancestor was not a chimpanzee; they evolved too). Before the Paleolithic, and even after it began, our ancestors at times likely used tools made from perishable materials - I cooked dinner with a wooden spoon, myself. Also, there's the question of culture - something once thought unique to humans: > Our findings provide insights into the technical skills associated with perishable artefact-making and raise questions about how this knowledge is learnt and culturally transmitted. There are two ways to pass down traits: genetics, and culture. If you think culture is somehow weaker or secondary, look at the traditions or look at languages that have lasted thousands of years with no genetic basis. An advantage of the cultural method is flexibility - it can be changed today; biological evolution takes awhile.
- lisper 2y ago> An advantage of the cultural method is flexibility - it can be changed today And it can be changed deliberately. Biological evolution is inherently a random search guided by a fixed quality metric -- reproductive fitness. That is not necessarily what a sentient being wants to optimize for.
- westurner 2y agoTool use by non-humans > Primates > Chimpanzees and bonobos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_non-humans#Chimpanzees_and_bonobos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_non-humans#Chimpan...
- alphajournal 2y ago[dead]
- Frederation 2y agoHmm like a lot of animals with large brains. Sounds familiar.
- gsf_emergency_2 2y agoChimp as Engineer=> Human as Ueberingenieur (English: Over-engineer) https://youtu.be/OWFq3ykkwP0 https://youtu.be/OWFq3ykkwP0 (Also :Shermanic <= Surmanic :()
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]