[JohnMakin]

One of the craziest behaviors I have seen was from a murder of American crows in a big city area sidewalk I walk down frequently - occasionally, I have observed homeless and vagrants throwing stuff at them, because sometimes they sleep under the powerlines where the crows like to perch and I think the crows defecate on them or something.

It's well known they can carry grudges, but one day, as I was walking down the sidewalk, a pretty sizable rock smacked the pavement next to me, seemingly out of nowhere. If it had hit my head I would have been hurt. I finally look up and see a big crow staring directly down at me - it had dropped it from the power lines, it had seemingly been intentional, maybe as a warning, I don't know. I attributed it to malice towards the vagrants that harass them.

I was amazed at how much intelligence it would take to 1) form a grudge 2) form intent to threaten/harm, 3) formulate a plan using a weapon with cause -> effect to execute intent, 4) wait for opportunity.

I have observed a lot of very intelligent behaviors from these birds but that was the wildest one. I have seen it happen once since, so I'm convinced it isn't an accident.

[helterskelter]

Crows in country will wait for a newborn deer to be left alone in a field by their mothers shortly after birth to peck the baby's eyes out so it dies and the crow can eat it later. My neighbor had told me about this happening, and maybe a month later I saw a fawn with its eyes pecked out shortly after it had died. The doe just sat at the edge of the field by it all night. So sad, but really smart of the crows.

Crows have also been known to alert predators like wolves to easy prey so they can pick the remains.

[emmelaich]

I thought what was a myth. My wife is terrified of crows, always thinking they're abut to peck her eyes out.

[Ntrails]

A goose was protecting its young as some (crows/ravens/idk) hopped around close on the ground. Mama hissed and flapped a little. Crows back off a bit.

Meanwhile another crow flies in, picks up a gosling by the neck (i swear there wasn't much difference in size, unreal to see) and flies off with it.

I could see the whole thing coming, was remarkable.

[ifwinterco]

They also do this to lambs, they're smart but evil

[kibwen]

> smart but evil

Sadly I have yet to see evidence that something can be smart without being evil.

[bryanrasmussen]

the evil here seems to be being a predator, which for the doe it would be reasonable to say the predator is evil, but examining the natural order of things from outside, as a human observing the doe, the fawn, and the crows, that is a pretty weird judgement to make. The predator has evolved to eat the prey, if that is evil then nature is evil or if you like, whatever created nature.

[tialaramex]

I suspect the corvids aren't obligate carnivores and so they could choose not to eat animals but they do it anyway.

Given that humans aren't obligate carnivores and further more, are capable of advanced chemistry so that even if they were obliged to eat other animals biologically they could just work around this without needing to kill anything - it seems much more compelling to judge us by such a metric than them. We decided that we liked steak so much we would deliberately raise cows just to eat them, the crow can't be anywhere near that "evil" if that's how we're characterising this outcome.

[JohnMakin]

They're scavengers, I think scavengers are wired to eat whatever is available at the least expenditure of energy.

[tormeh]

I'd say the evil lies in the infliction of suffering, not the killing or eating.

[verisimi]

'Evil' is a human characterisation, and is not applicable to animals imo; to apply it is to anthropomorphise the animal.

An applicable use of 'evil' for an animal, would be if you believe the animal 'knows better', eg a dog that knows right or wrong (in its way) but does something it thinks it shouldn't.

[conartist6]

The longer I live the more evidence I see the barrier between humans and other animals is thinner than we would like to imagine.

So I counter you with a practical question: can a crow commit a social transgression that will result in punishment by other crows? My strong suspicion is that the answer is yes, though I would love documentation as it would suggest a crow-cultural definition of morality

[srean]

We have rescue dog (abandoned on the street) and it seems to have a notion that violence within family is bad.

I was quite surprised to see that when I mock threatened my wife with a broom in his presence he jumped in to block. Not only that, he took the broom away from me and secured it away. I initially thought it was play, that he wanted to play with the broom. Seems he was just interested in separating me from the broom. He is our household saint.

We have a much younger dog (another rescue) who is not very nice at all to our saint. However, if my body language has even a hint of a threat to our little devil, he sure gets perked up and ready to protect.

This probably comes from pack behavior instinct. Fights inside a pack is bad.

[jamiek88]

I glanced at this and moved on but then my brain did a kind of record scratch on this comment.

Great question does intelligence require selfishness / evil?

I’m gonna think about this a bit, but my knee jerk was to (violently) disagree with this but I don’t know why.

[harrall]

I think evil is an an artificial and subjective construct and therefore intelligence will somehow do something “evil” by someone’s or something’s standard.

But at the same time, I think it is an important construct because it prevents groups from descending into absolute chaos, which encourages the survival of the species.

As a construct, I see the concept of evil as the way that humans classify activities that cause psychological harm and those triggers are somewhat biologically and culturally shared.

And there seem to be people that don’t seem to “see” evil (e.g. serial killers), but once again I think it’s just they don’t share some biological trait with the rest of us (which doesn’t justify their actions either).

So despite having the opinion that evil may just be a construct, I still find it important because (1) I am selfish and don’t want to be psychologically harmed and (2) I am not selfish and am vaguely interested in the survival of the species.

[jancsika]

> Great question does intelligence require selfishness / evil?

No.

E.g., a bunch of chimps who come upon food will probably become aggressive, whereas a bunch of bonobos will probably get frisky with each other.

They are closely related primates, and their level of intelligence is at least comparable. So it's quite unlikely that the chimps higher level of social aggression is a hard dependency of their level of intelligence.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Bonobos commit strategic infanticide amongst competing tribes.

[thatguy0900]

I wonder if it's not more accurate to say predators tend to be evil, and predators are typically the ones who have to be more visably clever to get their food. Even a incredibly intelligent sheep will still just be eating plants. A incredibly intelligent crow though will be able to eat deer instead of insects.

[verisimi]

> Great question does intelligence require selfishness / evil?

You think 'selfishness' and 'evil' are equivalent?

[jamiek88]

Matters of degree, no?

But that was poorly punctuated I meant selfishness or even evil not that they were equivalent.

[dullcrisp]

Speak for yourself.

[bryanrasmussen]

I don't think they said you hadn't seen any such evidence.

[dullcrisp]

I meant about being either evil or stupid. Never mind.

[dash2]

I wonder how much of this is truly smart as in planned/intentional behaviour. Couldn’t it just evolve? Suppose you hang around something that you want to eat . And you make a lot of noise. So now predators show up. none of this was planned, but now you have a fitness advantage.

[Kim_Bruning]

A) I am allergic to the word Just ;-) It means you stop being curious. How about one or more of the following?

B) Say you have a slow optimizer in a fast world: a lot of the time the optimal solution is going to be some form of computational generalization. Now you have meta-optimization. Life seems to enjoy doing this recursively.

C) Crow intelligence is clearly highly evolved, so you're technically correct, best kind of correct. Though here I'd argue that a very parsimonious answer is single-lifespan learned behavior. You're applying an existing learning system, no new mechanisms needed. (As opposed to positing some new evolved fixed action pattern).

D) There's not even anything stopping it from being planned behavior. Searle is struck out because it is biological; and no one can accuse us of anthropomorphism HERE!

E) Actually, for sparse events, planning using a world model can be more parsimonious. Apply existing model to new problem, again no extra mechanism needed. Which one works better for a particular entity in a particular situation depends on tradeoffs. (For a human example: see eg Memory items vs checklists vs airmanship in eg aviation)

F) That said, I'd even count evolution as a form of intelligence (well... it's an optimizer at least). I will literally die on this hill, and so will you O:-) (unless you represent optimums as valleys) ---> Plot evolution as a dynamic system in phase space, or with your typical hill-climber/gradient descent representations. How much does the trajectory differ from other optimizers? What happens if the 'terrain' is very bumpy with many local optimums? What if it deforms as you cross it?

[agumonkey]

second degree planning involving third party means very high social modeling, fascinating

[prerok]

I remember reading an article in National Geographic of how crow's brains are much more interconnected than is the norm in mammals, i.e. IIRC they have a higher density of synapses between neurons. From that article, it seems that the usual brain weight vs. body weight to determine intelligence, which seems can be used to approximate intelligence in different species of mammals, cannot be used for birds (or at least crows, which the article was focusing on).

In other words, they seem to achieve better results with smaller brains than we thought. And yes, crows (in EU) do exhibit some pretty intelligent behavior.

[Animats]

The brains of corvids are not closely related to mammalian brains. All the mammals have roughly the same brain, but corvids have a different architecture.[1]

Intelligence seems to have evolved three times on this planet - mammals, corvids, and octopuses. Octopuses have a distributed system rather than one central brain. They all have neurons, but the higher level architecture differs drastically.

Knowing that several different architectures can work is important for AI. There's apparently more than one way to do it.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23521...

[forlorn_mammoth]

I appreciate the linked article. I wonder if the the list should be expanded to 'at least three times', and I start to think about intelligence in plants.

See also recent work on honeybees, popularized here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bumblebees-can-sol...

honeybees are not social insects, but maybe social insects should be added to the list?

Social insects. The original object oriented programming paradigm.

[bmurphy1976]

Where do parrots fall in this grouping? They're not corvids. There must have been a pre-corvid ancestor.

[speed_spread]

Parrots aren't evil, they're just assholes.

[srean]

Octopuses are probably more alien than others.

[Animats]

My point here is that if intelligence developed more than once, it didn't come from some one-time random event or divine intervention. It looks like once there are connected neurons, it evolves via continuous improvement.

In some environments, that evolution hits limits. Flying birds are limited in brain mass or they can't get airborne. Which may be why corvids don't rule the world.

[srean]

Oh yes absolutely. Intelligence certainly developed more than once. Bird brain is no slur.

Before your comment I would have said it emerged twice, but then I had not considered octopuses, they are wicked smart and so unlike other intelligent animals we know.

[JohnMakin]

I've read there's also a social aspect - crows are extremely social creatures, as are humans, and other highly intelligent animals like whales. That does seem to be a common denominator.

Regarding that, I'm reminded of another story - on my daily walk near work, there was a dead crow on the pavement. 5 or so crows were standing all around it, doing nothing really. Even me passing close by did not trigger them to fly away or anything, it seemed like they were standing watch on the body. The next day, it was still there, same thing. The 3rd day, it was gone, but the crows were still standing watch in the same manner. I didn't know what to make of it other than it appeared they were mourning or taking part in some type of ingroup ritual. I didn't see it again after that, but it struck me.

[Terr_]

> [Social creatures] does seem to be a common denominator.

One theory is that it drives the creatures to internally model or simulate others intents and reactions, in a way which is a far more regular, consistent, and nuanced than any modeling of various prey or predators.

Further along that path is modeling future-me in plans, and layers of "I know they will know I know they know, so..."

[wrboyce]

Corvids have been known to investigate deaths, truly fascinating creatures!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00033...

[braggerxyz]

Thanks for the link. I observed a flock of "mourning" crows around a dead one in the field behind my yard. I was flabbergasted at what I was seeing. So they are mourning and investigating the cause of death for the sake of the flock. Wow!

[JohnMakin]

Thanks for linking this, I had been wondering what the heck I had observed. It was really interesting. I love watching them. I almost always see something new (for me)

[CSMastermind]

I'm not an expert in the area but have read a bunch on this topic to try and understand it better. Bird brains and human brains are structured very differently. Birds are much more like GPUs with independent distributed processing happening in parallel. Mammals have these big bidirectional layers where signals are constantly propagating up and down in a big connected computation.

[bruckie]

I wonder what the energy/evolutionary cost of densely-connected brains is. If it's advantageous, why are crows exceptional?

[virgildotcodes]

In terms of why bird brains would be exceptionally efficient for their volume (and I assume by extension, mass), would be that weight is at a premium for them.

[xeonmc]

Maybe they require the equivalent of advanced EUV machines to make?

[IAmBroom]

It could simply be an evolutionary "discovery", with no particular advantage over our "brain model". Evolution doesn't seek out optima; it simply encourages genetic structures that improve odds of reproductive success.

Or, to put it another way: if corvid genetics happened upon a brain type that promoted their survival, it doesn't matter if it was "better" or "worse" than the path the monkey/hominid brains took. Genetics took the first bus going in that direction.

[karunamurti]

Another case of brain efficiency : jumping spiders. They have less than half of ant's neurons, but instead of bruteforcing computing power they have a different specialized wirings.

[pcrh]

This might be what that article referred to [0]?

tl;dr, the higher cognitive abilities of birds are centered in a different region of the brain compared to mammals, the pallium vs the cortex. Neuron density in the bird pallium is also higher than the comparable density in the mammalian cortex.

[0] Developmental origins and evolution of pallial cell types and structures in birds https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp5182

[UncleOxidant]

They're even apparently able to pass their grudges along to other crows who did not have first-hand experience with the subject of the grudge.

[consumer451]

Here is that paper. It's amazing.

https://www.aaas.org/membership/member-spotlight/scientist-j...

[amanaplanacanal]

I've seen crows pick up walnuts and drop them in front of moving cars so the tires will open them. I had heard that they will do that, but it was still something to see it happen.

[e40]

I was talking with a neighbor once, and we had just started feeding the local crows. We were standing there for about 39 minutes, the I heard something metallic hit the sidewalk. I looked about 4 ft away, directly under the power lines, at a bottle cap. I hadn’t seen one of those in decades. Clearly it had been dropped by the crow perched up there.

Then, once we noticed a weird nut near the bowl of peanuts. Not sure what type it was, a buckeye I think.

Oddly, we’ve been feeding them for 6 years now and no other gifts!

[nativeit]

I’ve nothing empirical to back this up, but it’s my understanding that shiny objects like bottle caps are prized toys, and the sort of thing one might be gifted by corvids who have taken a liking to you. I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence that crows will exchange gifts with one another, and with humans, to develop and nurture positive relationships.

Someone pondered a correlation between intelligence and some notion of “evil”. I personally believe empathy and altruism are highly connected to intelligence, and the act of giving a gift to another is suggestive of both attributes.

There are also examples of altruism in other species not frequently considered intelligent. Vampire bats will regurgitate food to share with others, even if they are not tied by familial bonds and even if there’s no other tangential benefit to the individual giving up its own nutrition. We have also recently observed female tigers caring for and protecting another female’s cubs while she feeds, which is novel behavior to observe in typically solitary tigers.

[observationist]

They plan pretty deeply - if you think about things like plastic lid snowboarding, or cup sorting games (fit the smaller cups inside the larger) and those types of puzzles, there's usually an abstract reward, whether it's fun, play, revenge, or some future food or whatnot. They tease other animals, will play fetch, demonstrate a rich emotional inner life, and all of those things can be motivations for their complex plans. Throw in familial loyalty, social dynamics, interactions with humans, and it's a recipe for glorious chaos. There's a lot more going on that doesn't cleanly map to most people's conception of birds.

Ravens are wonderful creatures.

[braggerxyz]

> ... glorious chaos. I like that concept. Thanks for the laugh! :D

[billiam]

Maybe you should be asking yourself what you did to piss of this corvid? They have been shown to recognize faces.

[fritzo]

By "sizable rock" do you mean large pebble or small boulder?

[lowestprimate]

A large pebble the size of a small pebble

[JohnMakin]

A little larger than a golf ball.

[IAmBroom]

Something that produces a loud exclamation in a movie character, but possible permanent brain damage IRL.

[JohnMakin]

Yea, what creeped me out, is this must have been done before, and got whatever effect the bird intended. hard to say what it’s motives were of course but they’re smart enough to know what they are doing

[markdown]

Where I am from, a rock is by definition huge. It sounds like the bird dropped a stone.

[doodlebugging]

If the stone the crow dropped weighed a stone, that's a big fuckin' rock where I come from.

[phendrenad2]

Oh, crows are WAY smarter than that. If one tried to drop a stone on you, it was because it didn't like your online comments.

[cortesoft]

My understanding is crows can recognize individuals, so I would think back to what you did to piss off that crow, or that crow's friends.

[bitwize]

As demonstrated in humans, the ability to recognize individuals is little impediment to resentment based on group membership.

[JohnMakin]

I was guessing just a general preference towards anyone in their area. I have certainly never done anything harmful towards them.

[shimman]

Crows have been known to harass distinct individuals over others, even going as far as to teach other crows about this person.

I wonder if this was an elder crow whose eyesight has decreased with age and gave out the wrong descriptions to their friends. :D