Tag: Cats

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Eric Holloway
Date
June 7, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI, Cats, ChatGPT, Consciousness, Creativity, Dall-E, Human exceptionalism, Midjourney, OpenAI, Robert J. Marks, Understanding}

Say What? AI Doesn’t Understand Anything

_{Is that supposed to be a cat, Mr. AI?} _{Eric Holloway
June 7, 2023

9

Artificial Intelligence}

Whenever I look at AI generated content, whether it be pictures or text, they all have the same flaw. The AI cannot comprehend what it is making. Let me explain. When we humans draw a picture, we are drawing a concept. We are drawing something like “cat climbs a tree” or “cowboy riding into the sunset”. It seems like this is what is happening with a picture drawing AI. We give it a prompt, and it draws an associated picture. On second thought, maybe not… When AI draws the picture, what is really going on is it is finding individual-colored pixels that correlate with the letters we typed in its massive database stored in the neural network. Very different than how we draw. We Read More ›

stately Bengal Male Cat with beautiful spots Standing and Looking up on Isolated Black Background, Front view, Gorgerous breed

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Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 28, 2022

Categorized
Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Carly Cassella, Cats, Cats and human voices, Cats and information, Charlotte de Mouzon, Ed Cara}

Researchers: Cats Do Recognize and Respond To Our Voices

_{If you are a cat’s human friend, he cares when you talk to him. Whether he will, or even can, do what you want is a separate question} _{Denyse O'Leary
October 28, 2022

8

Natural Intelligence}

Do cats care whether we talk to them or not? In a recent study, animal cognition experts found that cats may change their behavior when their “humans” are talking in a tone directed to them. But they don’t react the same way to a stranger who is talking that way or when the voice is directed elsewhere. Charlotte de Mouzon and colleagues from Université Paris Nanterre (Nanterre, France) investigated the way 16 cats reacted to “pre-recorded voices from both their owner and that of a stranger when saying phrases in cat-directed and human adult-directed tones.” With adult-directed tones, no “endearing” kitty talk is used. It might not be clear who the intended recipient of the message is, apart from what Read More ›

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Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 27, 2021

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Bonobos, Cats, Chimpanzees, Dogs, Luo Scientific Reserve, Mammals (adopting other animals)}

Bonobo Chimpanzees Adopt Orphans, a First for Great Apes

_{But this story is not what it seems. Let’s cut through some pop science assumptions. The real story is a good argument that humans are not just animals} _{Denyse O'Leary
March 27, 2021

5

Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Science}

There’s been a stir recently among primate zoologists around two female bonobos who adopted infants from outside their group: During observations at the Luo Scientific Reserve in Wamba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, the scientists saw the mother bonobos (Pan paniscus) carrying, grooming, nursing, and sharing food with their adoptees, who were in excellent health and treated well by their new social groups. The team’s analysis of DNA extracted from the infants’ faeces confirmed that the youngsters were genetically unrelated to the groups they lived in. “Bonobo mums open their arms to outsider orphans” at Nature Why do they do it? Various explanations are offered: The researchers suggest, “In both cases, adoptees had no maternal kin-relationship with their adoptive mothers. Read More ›

A black cat plays with a robotic vacuum cleaner that cleans the floor.pet playing with robot vacuum cleaner

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News
Date
February 13, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
A Robot is a Robot (short film), Cats, Common sense, Emil Friis Ernst, Nilas Røpke Driessen, Robots, Science fiction}

Sci-fi Saturday: The Disabled Robot Vet Gets a Job Grooming Cats

_{Definitely worth your five minutes, in part in order to see what cartoonists can do in sci-fi with animated stills.} _{News
February 13, 2021

6

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

“A Robot is a Robot” at DUST by Danish cartoonists Emil Friis Ernst and Nilas Røpke Driessen (February 2, 2021, 05:49 min) tells a tale: “A disabled robot war veteran finds its home among humans in the tender care of an old lady, and her hair salon for cats.” The story is told, intriguingly, as a series of cartoon stills and animated stills, beginning with the robot veteran begging on the sidewalk, whereupon the old lady takes him in. The robot floats on a single wheel and has a body like a metal tea cozy — a nice change from the more “android” type. She employs the robot to groom cats, who seem to appreciate his work, until he encounters Read More ›

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Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 21, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Religion

Tagged
Bastet, Burials, Carlos Driscoll, Cats, Egypt (ancient), Lauren Finka, Morten Kringelbach, Mummies, Salima Ikran, Superstition}

Some Mysteries About Cats … Solved!

_{Pet dogs outnumber cats but they’ll never excel at creating the aura of mystery at which the cat effortlessly succeeds} _{Denyse O'Leary
August 21, 2020

7

Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Religion}

Following up on the ways cats are intelligent, it might be fun to look at how humans got involved with them. It turns out that there are reasons why we have always found cats mysterious, compared to dogs. Why are people so fond of cats? There are lots of reasons but here’s an interesting find: Domestic cats’ meows for attention are said to be unique to their relationship with humans. Oxford neuroscientist Morten Kringelbach has found a way to map human responses via magnetoencephalograph (MEG) studies that measure electrical activity in our brains in real time. He found that the cry of a baby triggered a response in the orbitofrontal cortex before study subjects had identified the sound consciously. Adult Read More ›

Cat and robotic vacuum cleaner in the room. Fluffy british shorthair cat is playing with a robotic vacuum.

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Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 18, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Science

Tagged
Acro-Cats, Berit Brogaard, Cats, Dogs, intelligence, Leslie Darling}

In What Ways Are Cats Intelligent?

_{Cats have nearly twice as many neurons as dogs and a bigger and more complex cerebral cortex} _{Denyse O'Leary
August 18, 2020

7

Natural Intelligence, Science}

It’s hard to come up with an interspecies IQ test. We live in a world where dogs are smarter than wolves in some ways but wolves are smarter than dogs in others. So much depends on what we want to measure. So let’s look at cats in relation to dogs because dogs have been studied so much more. Dogs are often seen as smarter than cats because they can do more jobs for humans. But humans bred dogs for millennia to do those very jobs. Cats have also made themselves useful to humans by killing pest rodents. But we best help the cat kill rodents just by getting out of his way. Thus, to assess cat intelligence vs. dog intelligence, Read More ›

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Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 25, 2019

Categorized
Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Bonding, Cats, Featured}

Cats do bond with people

_{Both cats and kittens showed about the same level of attachment to caregivers as children and dogs did} _{Denyse O'Leary
September 25, 2019

5

Natural Intelligence}

When a cat feels secure, he develops relationships with humans and dogs. But he won’t be either your servant or your master; just your housemate—and maybe at last your old friend.

Study: Cats Do Recognize Their Names

_{They recognize them as signals but not as abstractions} _{Denyse O'Leary
April 9, 2019

7

Natural Intelligence}

It’s a sobering fact that the war on human exceptionalism makes nonsense of our ability to understand animals. If we start with the fact that a cat cannot understand abstractions like “my name” because he is not a reasoning creature, we can intuit that most cats can learn human sounds that make a difference to them anyway.