Bird brains (2023)

Bender

Adding to this a chart of neuron count [1] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...

cyjackx

I have to imagine that given birds are descendants of dinosaurs, which evolved quite a long time ago, they've had a lot more time to optimize certain things.

small_model

Given parrots can talk, there must be a neuron count that activates language (assuming anatomy allows it), similar to LLM parameter count.

ge96

If you haven't seen Apollo on YT, crazy What is it made out of? meTUL Want a pistach

gjsman-1000

> Dr. Irene Pepperberg studied an African grey parrot named Alex for 30 years. Alex could identify objects, colours, shapes, and numbers. He understood abstract concepts like "same" and "different." His vocabulary exceeded 100 words. When he died in 2007, his last words to Pepperberg were reportedly "You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow." I don't care how you define intelligence -- that one's hard to brush off. The author takes forgranted the claim of intelligence; and does not assess at all whether the researcher simply said those words to the parrot every night. (Why not? It sounds exactly like what a researcher would tell a parrot before turning off the lights.) A quick search on Wikipedia says the parrot was also found dead in the morning, not in the implied "parrot has last words" scenario.

lucasay

“More neurons = intelligence” always felt like an oversimplification. If that were true, we wouldn’t be surprised by birds or octopuses anymore.

djmips

bird brains are a die shrink of mammalian brains.

tos1

This gives a whole new meaning to the term “stochastic parrots” for LLMs :)

SoftTalker

> Calling someone a "bird brain" is honestly more of a compliment. Well no. Some birds are flat-out dumb. Chickens for example.

junon

Parrot owner here. This doesn't surprise me at all. I'm actually a bit surprised they cared about the gyms! This fits right into the ABC model of parrot psychology: https://www.parrots.org/pdfs/all_about_parrots/reference_lib...

amelius

Reminds me of: https://www.nature.com/news/2007/070716/full/news070716-15.h... > Scans reveal a fluid-filled cavity in the brain of a normal man.

awinter-py

is this a straight-up advantage, or is the trade-off lower connectivity?

Sharlin

Makes sense, given that to birds, optimizing for weight is everything. But seeing that the ridiculously smart border collies have a comparatively low density of neurons, clearly there’s more to intelligence than that.

awsanswers

If you're in tune with animals and spend time around a parrot, it's obvious there is a lot going on in their minds. They have incredible memories and their own understanding of their world. It looks simple to us but they are not simple creatures. That being said, I don't know how a bird lover can keep a bird in a cage.

bwv848

Been to NZ once. Keas are indeed the coolest parrots ever. Climb to the top of Avalanche Peak and you’re guaranteed to see some soaring in the sky, with snowy Mt. Rolleston in the background. Kiwis call them alpine parrots, but they are not. They were common on both islands before Polynesian/Maori hunted many of them, and European ranchers forced them to retreat to high beech forests and alpine zones. Another place is Dart Hut, I even found some kea feathers there.

lateforwork

This is Alex the parrot, mentioned in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYkFdu5FJk

netcan

Parrots are definitely smart, but birds generally pack a lot into a small mass. That's required for flight.

pks016

I work on some aspects of intelligence in birds, primarily in songbirds. There have been some effort finding general intelligence ("g" cognitive factor) in birds since last 15-20 years. The results have been mixed as you would expect. Animals' intelligence have evolved for survival and designing experiments to test those are quite hard. Research has shown brain size matters but not that much, we should look at relative brain size.

bradley13

Birds are highly optimized. For example, all cells contain a full genome. The genomes in birds are a lot smaller - less trash DNA - which saves them weight and generally makes the cells more efficient.

srean

https://nautil.us/the-great-silence-237510 One of my all time favourite short stories, with or without intelligent parrots. Time for me to read it again. This is the Arecibo story, don't miss if you haven't read it before. "You be good". Strangely enough, was having a lot of difficulty coaxing google to fetch this link.