3 ms·

You be good. I love you. https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ Corvids, parrots are extremely intelligent. H

by srean 2y ago

You be good. I love you. https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510/ Corvids, parrots are extremely intelligent. How so or why so, considering their brain size relative to their body, is not well understood. If you can do grab a copy of Alex and Me. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3018307-alex-me https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3018307-alex-me

syndeo 2y ago
That was great, thank you for sharing.
- srean 2y ago
  Pleasure's all mine. It's one of my favourite short stories.
- jstrieb 2y ago
  If you liked that story, you should really read the full anthology, called Exhalation. Ted Chiang is a wonderful writer, and there are a lot of great stories in that book. I think my favorite was The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate.
  - srean 1y ago
    Yes indeed. Merchant ... was such a delightful story.
dinfinity 1y ago
A bit offtopic, but it's funny how people call parrots/birds "extremely intelligent" and AI/LLMs "just stochastic parrots devoid of any intelligence", even though their capabilities are very obviously far more like the inverse of those qualifications (show me a video where someone has even a basic extended back and forth conversation with a bird). There is a pretty clear double standard there. Looking at the numbers: Grey parrots have almost 1 billion 'forebrain' neurons ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons#Forebrain_(cerebrum_or_pallium)_only https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n... ). Estimates for the average number of synapses per neuron range in the thousands, so a conservative estimate for the total would be 1 trillion synapses. If you assume that LLM parameters are comparable to synapses, then such a bird brain is similar to the frontier LLMs in size ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_language_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_language_models ). Yes, the bird brain is far more energy efficient, but with regard to intelligence modern AI absolutely smokes birds.
- rubylark 1y ago
  I think it's a difference in expectation. For some reason, people are surprised that birds have the same intelligence level as a human toddler. However no one wants an AI assistant that's as dumb as a toddler.
- bryceacc 1y ago
  uh.. AI/LLMs were created to be smart, and they sometimes meet that expectation. We did not create parrots, we just get surprised when they show off intelligence
  - deleted 1y ago
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- deleted 1y ago
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RachelF 1y ago
> How so or why so, considering their brain size relative to their body, is not well understood. One factor is neuron size. Bird neurons are around 0.4 the length of mammalian neurons, so you can pack in around 8 times the neurons in a given volume. A large parrot has the same number of neurons as a medium sized dog.

by srean 2y ago

syndeo 2y ago

That was great, thank you for sharing.

srean 2y ago
Pleasure's all mine. It's one of my favourite short stories.
jstrieb 2y ago
If you liked that story, you should really read the full anthology, called Exhalation. Ted Chiang is a wonderful writer, and there are a lot of great stories in that book. I think my favorite was The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate.
- srean 1y ago
  Yes indeed. Merchant ... was such a delightful story.

dinfinity 1y ago

A bit offtopic, but it's funny how people call parrots/birds "extremely intelligent" and AI/LLMs "just stochastic parrots devoid of any intelligence", even though their capabilities are very obviously far more like the inverse of those qualifications (show me a video where someone has even a basic extended back and forth conversation with a bird). There is a pretty clear double standard there. Looking at the numbers: Grey parrots have almost 1 billion 'forebrain' neurons ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons#Forebrain_(cerebrum_or_pallium)_only https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n... ). Estimates for the average number of synapses per neuron range in the thousands, so a conservative estimate for the total would be 1 trillion synapses. If you assume that LLM parameters are comparable to synapses, then such a bird brain is similar to the frontier LLMs in size ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_language_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_language_models ). Yes, the bird brain is far more energy efficient, but with regard to intelligence modern AI absolutely smokes birds.

rubylark 1y ago
I think it's a difference in expectation. For some reason, people are surprised that birds have the same intelligence level as a human toddler. However no one wants an AI assistant that's as dumb as a toddler.
bryceacc 1y ago
uh.. AI/LLMs were created to be smart, and they sometimes meet that expectation. We did not create parrots, we just get surprised when they show off intelligence
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

RachelF 1y ago

> How so or why so, considering their brain size relative to their body, is not well understood. One factor is neuron size. Bird neurons are around 0.4 the length of mammalian neurons, so you can pack in around 8 times the neurons in a given volume. A large parrot has the same number of neurons as a medium sized dog.