[asketak]

Most of the AI progress in last years is just tuning pattern recognition algorithms. We can not expect these algorithms to produce results like humans, because humans have a lot of information not just from percieving the world, but their patterns of thinking are also vastly dependend on the underlying structure of brain, that has developed over milions of years of evolution.

If there is a cliff, toddlers are scared of being nearby. They definetely don't have the ability to "imagine=simulate" the consequences of falling over the cliff. The fear is in the structure of neurons of brain.

If you feed classifier algorithm with images of black dogs and white swans and then want to classify black swan. Both classifying it as dog(because of color) or swan(because of shape) are right. The difference is only in bias, which features do you prefer.

[scardine]

You must watch the documentary "The secret life of babies". There is a scene where they put several babies on a "cliff" situation (with a glass in the same level to prevent them falling), they will confidently march into the glass - they do several other experiments that prove babies are fearless.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80009352

[giardini]

Babies are not born afraid of the cliff (i.e., it isn't hardwired into the infant brain); they develop fear of it at about 9 months' age, once their depth perception has developed.

[Arwill]

> If there is a cliff, toddlers are scared of being nearby.

I don't know about a study proving that, might be true. But from my own experience, toddlers are not afraid of anything until a. they hurt themselves, b. they develop more and understand the concepts like height, c. the parent repeats "no" to them and/or shows them what to do or not to do until they learn.

So there might be evolutionary pre-programming in the human brain, but toddlers brain still needs to develop until those became active. I think there should be more research into how toddlers learn to crawl, stand and walk, how they learn to speak, etc.

[nl]

If there is a cliff, toddlers are scared of being nearby.

Not sure if you are a parent, but this isn't the case at all!

[scotty79]

https://youtu.be/WanGt1G6ScA

Not sure what to think about it.

[nl]

https://youtu.be/WanGt1G6ScA?t=92 (from that video, at a timepoint which shows a young a baby crawling over a glass surface with a drop beneath it, with no sign of discomfort).

I'd say this proves the point completely. It shows that babies aren't scared of heights, and they don't acquire the fear from experience. Instead it seems likely it is that they either develop a mental model of how the world works, or they learn from watching other's behavior.

[giardini]

Or the mechanism is developed during a "critical period" once depth perception has developed. It isn't necessarily totally learned behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

[tormeh]

It comes with age, at least. Babies are afraid of some kinds of heights, but not others. Too bad that I don't remember what kinds they fear.

[asketak]

Guys you are right. Not sure, where i got that information. Sorry.