Many Minds Titelbild

Many Minds

Von: Kensy Cooperrider – Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
Jetzt kostenlos hören, ohne Abo

  • Inhaltsangabe

  • Our world is brimming with beings—human, animal, and artificial. We explore how they think, sense, feel, and learn. Conversations and more, every two weeks.
    Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute 2020
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
Folgen
  • Cosmopolitan carnivores

    Cosmopolitan carnivores
    Apr 18 2024
    They tend to move under the cover of darkness. As night descends, they come for your gardens and compost piles, for your trash cans and attic spaces. They are raccoons, skunks, and coyotes. And if you live in urban North America, they are a growing presence. Whether you consider them menacing, cute, fascinating, or all of the above, you have to grant that they are quite a clever crew. After all, they've figured out how to adapt to human-dominated spaces. But how have they done this? What traits and talents have allowed them to evolve into this brave new niche? And are they still evolving into it? My guest today is Dr. Sarah Benson-Amram. Sarah is Assistant Professor of Forest and Conservation Sciences and Zoology at the University of British Columbia; she also directs the Animal Behavior & Cognition Lab at UBC. Sarah's research group focuses on the behavioral and cognitive ecology of urban wildlife. They ask what urban wildlife can teach us about animal cognition more generally and try to understand ways to smooth human-wildlife interactions. Here, Sarah and I talk about her work on that trio I mentioned before: raccoons, skunks, and coyotes. These three species are all members of the mammalian order of carnivora, a clade of animals that Sarah has focused on throughout her career and one that has been underrepresented in studies of animal cognition. We discuss the traits that have allowed these species—and certain members of these species—to thrive in dynamic, daunting urban spaces. We also talk about the big picture of the evolution of intelligence—and how urban adapter species might shed light on what is known as the cognitive buffer hypothesis. Along the way, we touch on: the neophilia of raccoons and the neophobia of coyotes, puzzle boxes, the Aesop's fable task, hyenas and elephants, brain size, individual differences, human-wildlife conflict, comparative gastronomy, and the cognitive arms race that might be unfolding in our cities. If you have any feedback for us, we would love to hear from you. Guest suggestions? Topics or formats you'd like to see? Blistering critiques? Effusive compliments? We're open to all of it. You can email us at manymindspodcast at gmail dot com. That's manymindspodcast at gmail. Though, honestly, if it's really an effusive compliment, feel free to just post that publicly somewhere. Alright friends, on to my conversation with Sarah Benson-Amram. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode is available here. Notes and links 8:50 – A study of manual dexterity in raccoons. 11:30 – A video featuring raccoon chittering, among other vocalizations. 12:00 ­– A recent academic paper on the categorization of wildlife responses to urbanization—avoider, adapter, exploiter—with some critical discussion. 14:00 – A study of how animals are becoming more nocturnal in response to humans. 18:00 – An encyclopedia article on the Social Intelligence Hypothesis, by one of its originators, Richard Byrne. A recent appraisal of how the hypothesis has fared across different taxa. 18:30 – A recent review article by Dr. Benson-Amram and colleagues surveying carnivore cognition. 25:00 ­– On the question of urban vs rural animals, see the popular article, ‘Are cities making animals smarter?’ 28:00 – A study by Dr. Benson-Amram and colleagues using puzzle boxes to study behavioral flexibility in captive raccoons. See also her follow-up study, conducted with a large team of neuroscience collaborators, examining the brains of raccoons who successfully solved the puzzle boxes. 34:30 – An earlier study by Dr. Benson-Amram on innovative problem solving in hyenas. 36:30 – Our earlier episode on animal personality with Dr. Kate Laskowski. 39:00 – A study by Dr. Benson-Amram and colleagues exploring raccoons’ ability to solve the Aesop’s Fable task. She has also used this task with elephants. 44:00 – A study by Dr. Benson-Amram and colleagues examining reversal learning in raccoons, skunks, and coyotes. 49:00 – An article articulating the “cognitive buffer hypothesis.” 51:00 – A paper discussing—and “reviving”—the so-called ecological intelligence hypothesis. 53:00 – A study by Dr. Benson-Amram and colleagues comparing brain size and problem-solving ability in mammalian carnivores. 56:00 – A paper by Dr. Benson-Amram and colleagues on cognition in so-called nuisance species, in which they discuss the idea of a "cognitive arms race." 57:30 – A paper on bin-opening in cockatoos and how it might be leading to an “innovation arms race.” Recommendations How Monkeys See the World, Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans De Waal An Immense World, by Ed Yong (featured in a previous episode!) Urban Carnivores, by Stanley D. Gehrt, Seth P. D. Riley, and Brian L. Cypher Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 2 Min.
  • From the archive: Myths, robots, and the origins of AI

    From the archive: Myths, robots, and the origins of AI
    Apr 4 2024
    Hi friends, we're busy with some spring cleaning this week. We'll have a new episode for you in two weeks. In the meanwhile, enjoy this pick from our archives! _____ [originally aired Nov 30, 2022] When we talk about AI, we usually fixate on the future. What’s coming next? Where is the technology going? How will artificial intelligences reshape our lives and worlds? But it's also worth looking to the past. When did the prospect of manufactured minds first enter the human imagination? When did we start building robots, and what did those early robots do? What are the deeper origins, in other words, not only of artificial intelligences themselves, but of our ideas about those intelligences? For this episode, we have two guests who've spent a lot of time delving into the deeper history of AI. One is Adrienne Mayor; Adrienne is a Research Scholar in the Department of Classics at Stanford University and the author of the 2018 book, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology. Our second guest is Elly Truitt; Elly is Associate Professor in the History & Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the 2015 book, Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art. In this conversation, we draw on Adrienne's expertise in the classical era and Elly's expertise in the medieval period to dig into the surprisingly long and rich history of AI. We discuss some of the very first imaginings of artificial beings in Greek mythology, including Talos, the giant robot guarding the island of Crete. We talk about some of the very first historical examples of automata, or self-moving devices; these included statues that spoke, mechanical birds that flew, thrones that rose, and clocks that showed the movements of the heavens. We also discuss the long-standing and tangled relationships between AI and power, exoticism, slavery, prediction, and justice. And, finally, we consider some of the most prominent ideas we have about AI today and whether they had precedents in earlier times. This is an episode we've been hoping to do for some time now, to try to step back and put AI in a much broader context. It turns out the debates we're having now, the anxieties and narratives that swirl around AI today, are not so new. In some cases, they're millennia old. Alright friends, now to my conversation with Elly Truitt and Adrienne Mayor. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode is available here. Notes and links 4:00 – See Adrienne’s TedEd lesson about Talos, the “first robot.” See also Adrienne’s 2019 talk for the Long Now Foundation. 7:15 – The Throne of Solomon does not survive, but it was often rendered in art, for example in this painting by Edward Poynter. 12:00 – For more on Adrienne’s broader research program, see her website; for more on Elly’s research program, see her website. 18:00 – For more on the etymology of ‘robot,’ see here. 23:00 – A recent piece about Aristotle’s writings on slavery. 26:00 – An article about the fact that Greek and Roman statues were much more colorful than we think of them today. 30:00 – A recent research article about the Antikythera mechanism. 34:00 – See Adrienne’s popular article about the robots that guarded the relics of the Buddha. 38:45 – See Elly’s article about how automata figured prominently in tombs. 47:00 – See Elly’s recent video lecture about mechanical clocks and the “invention of time.” For more on the rise of mechanistic thinking—and clocks as important metaphors in that rise—see Jessica Riskin’s book, The Restless Clock. 50:00 – An article about a “torture robot” of ancient Sparta. 58:00 – A painting of the “Iron Knight” in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Adrienne Mayor recommends: The Greeks and the New, by Armand D’Angour Classical Traditions in Science Fiction, edited by Brett Rogers and Benjamin Stevens In Our Own Image, by George Zarkadakis Ancient Inventions, by Peter James and Nick Thorpe Elly Truitt recommends: AI Narratives, edited by Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal, and Sarah Dillon The Love Makers, by Aifric Campbell The Mitchells vs the Machines You can read more about Adrienne’s work on her website and follow her on Twitter. You can read more about Elly’s work on her website and follow her on Twitter. Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 5 Min.
  • The borderlands of perception

    The borderlands of perception
    Mar 21 2024
    We've all seen those illusions. The dots seem to dance, when in fact they're completely still. The lines look like they bend, but in reality they're perfectly straight. Here's the thing: It doesn't matter that you know the ground truth of these illusions—the dancing and bending won't stop. And that we see the world one way, even though we know it's actually another way, is a fascinating quirk of our minds—and maybe a telling one. It suggests that there's a chasm between perceiving and thinking, that these may be two independent provinces of the mind. But, if so, we're faced with another question: Where does perception end and thinking begin? My guest today is Dr. Chaz Firestone. Chaz is an Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the Perception and Mind lab there. He and his research group study perceiving, thinking, and the interface between the two. Here, Chaz and I talk about his background in philosophy and how it continues to animate his research. We sketch the differences between perception and cognition and why the two are best considered separate faculties. We consider the idea of so-called "top-down" effects on perception. We discuss the fact that, even if perception and cognition are separate, there's much more to perception than meets the eye. We seem to see things like causes and social interactions; we perceive things like silences and absences. Along the way, Chaz and I touch on the modular view mind, skeletal shapes, the El Greco fallacy, stubborn epistemology, birders and radiologists, retinotopy and visual adaptation, adversarial images, human-machine comparisons, and the case of the blue banana. This is a fun one, friends. But before we get to it, one humble request. If you've been enjoying Many Minds, now would be a great time to leave us a rating or review. You can do this on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. It would really help us grow and get the word out! It actually looks like our last review on Apple Podcasts is about 10 months old—so, if you have a minute, that could really use some freshening up. Alright folks, on to my conversation with Chaz Firestone. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode is available here. Notes and links 3:00 – Dr. Firestone’s early paper reporting the Times Square experiment and the “skeletal shape” phenomenon. 8:00 – A visual explanation of the “missing bullet holes” graphic. 13:00 – Dr. Firestone has collaborated intensively with the philosopher Ian Phillips. 15:00 – A recent book by Ned Block, The Border Between Seeing and Thinking. 24:00 – Visual illusions are legion, as are inventories of them. See, for instance, this catalogue on Wikipedia or this Reddit thread. 25:00 – An obituary for Jerry Fodor, who died in 2017. The classic book by Zenon Pylyshyn, Computation and Cognition. 28:00 – A paper by Dr. Firestone about the history of the El Greco fallacy. An empirical paper by Dr. Firestone and Brian Scholl showing the El Greco fallacy at work in perception research. 35:00 – A target article (with commentaries) in Behavioral and Brain Sciences by Dr. Firestone and Dr. Scholl about claims of “top-down” effects on perception. Dr. Firestone has published other work on this theme, e.g., here, here, & here. 41:00 – A paper with discussion (and illustration) of the classic Dalmation Mooney image. 45:00 – A study of rapid visual pattern recognition in expert chess players. 50:30 – A paper by J.J. Valenti and Dr. Firestone about the case of the blue banana. 54:00 – A review paper by Alon Hafri and Dr. Firestone reviewing evidence that people actually perceive high-level relations like causality, support, and social interaction. 56:00 – A study by Martin Rolfs and colleagues about the perception of causality. 1:02:00 – A study by Liuba Papeo and colleagues about the perception of social interactions. A related paper showing an inversion effect. 1:04:00 – A paper by Alon Hafri and colleagues on the perception of roles in an interaction. 1:06:00 – A widely cited paper by J. Kiley Hamlin and colleagues on the recognition of social interactions in preverbal infants. 1:06:30 – A review paper on reading in the brain. 1:10:00 – A paper by Rui Goh, Dr. Phillips, and Dr. Firestone on the perception of silence. 1:18:00 – A recent review paper by Jorge Morales and Dr. Firestone about the dialogue between philosophy of perception and psychology, which discusses the perception of absence (among other case studies). 1:22:00 – A recent perspective piece by Dr. Firestone about human-machine comparisons. 1:25:00 - An empirical paper by Zhenglong Zhou and Dr. Firestone on the deciphering of adversarial images by humans. 1:28:00 – For a review of the mirror self-recognition test, see our earlier audio essay. 1:35:00 – Other interesting work going on in Dr. Firestone’s ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 36 Min.
Wissenschaft
Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen

Das sagen andere Hörer zu Many Minds

Nur Nutzer, die den Titel gehört haben, können Rezensionen abgeben.

Rezensionen - mit Klick auf einen der beiden Reiter können Sie die Quelle der Rezensionen bestimmen.

Audible-Rezensionen

Amazon Rezensionen
Es gibt noch keine Rezensionen