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wedontlikespaces t1_ixmm4e7 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in New AI Tech Allows Humans to Talk to Animals by 4inalfantasy

My cat understands how to get me to give her food. She goes and looks sadly at her empty food bowl, and then looks sadly at me. If she could get that food by pressing the easy and convenient "food" button, she would work it out. But that's not the same thing as comprehending language.

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snoozieboi t1_ixmtmeo wrote

I seem to have read about that famous woman who spend decades with gorillas(?) and taught them sign language. Some claim it all was her bias towards wanting to understand etc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)#Criticism

I've also seen the sound board things with dogs and cats and it's intriguing, especially when a cat apparently realizes it's raining and presses something like "stupid" "weather", but it's not like it's scientifically proved in a controlled environment, of course.

My cat would lead me to where he wanted to go, mostly to open doors so he could patrol his areas inside or outside. He'd also want to play by seemingly starting to look actively for invisible preys before I would present a toy he'd attack. Very easy to read at times, but he never told me about my car's extended warranty.

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selectiveyellow t1_ixn3n9m wrote

After Rise of the Planet of the Apes came out, Koko's handlers unironically produced a video of Koko criticizing humanity, just a whole political speech.

Outside of that, I think Koko was pretty good at asking for oranges. Honestly, language is hard and it's difficult to tell a gorilla what they're allowed to do.

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snoozieboi t1_ixncg20 wrote

All I remember from a documentary was Koko having fits and just like a kid choosing to just using the word for "poop" over and over, pretty much like my nephews.

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wedontlikespaces t1_ixncgwn wrote

Gorillas are interesting because they actually possess the necessary vocal cords for language, but more recent study using the whole Koko thing, have proven they don't possess the corresponding language centre in the brain. It's like they are waiting to evolve.

More accurately the vocal cords evolved much earlier in evolutionary history for some other, unknown, purpose and were "repurposed" later on for speech when we evolved the language centre in the brain, which tends to happen a lot in evolution.

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