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by krono 857 days ago
I believe you are vastly underestimating the capabilities of parrots or similarly intelligent birds.

At least when my pet parrot manages to fool me into whatever it is he wants to get out of me that time, he does it for his own primal benefit and not because it was programmed to adhere to some strict set of ethic and moral boundaries set by legal requirements and someone else's idea of how people should think and behave.
2 comments
Eliah_Lakhin 857 days ago
I don't think that following the primal benefit would be a good estimation for intelligence, despite the fact that such behavior is common for most species.

What makes human specie special is the ability of some individuals to create new things that didn't exist before. That's a loose criteria of course, because most individuals just follow educated social constructs for their entire life.

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krono 857 days ago
Oh yes I agree on that. I should have specified that I was arguing their ability to reason - which from my own experience these birds do most definitely possess to a surprising extend. They are smart, and they have all day to figure out which buttons to press to get you to do something specific they find funny or other such things.
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smackeyacky 857 days ago
The smart behaviour of parrots and their speech synthesis are two different phenomenon.

Parrots are definitely smart, and parrots can definitely speak, but they can't learn to speak beyond what they are trained to do. It's not like a parrot has ever spontaneously put together a coherent sentence independently.

LLMs aren't even that smart. Not even close.

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krono 857 days ago
Absolutely, I also replied to the OP's response below that I failed to specify that I was arguing parrots' ability to reason which I do believe exists to a great extend.

Regardless, speech is just another means of communication. In the end it doesn't really matter if I use perfectly articulated Swahili or just scream "aaar" at you for a few seconds as long as I get the cheeseburger with extra cheese I want from you. These parrots, much like children, just push your buttons and are quite good at finding (or negotiating) the right pattern of things to do and sounds to make to get to a certain outcome.

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