Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature, future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on this show, the robots are taking over.
Speaker 1: Robots are coming for these animals, from robotic dinosaurs to
Speaker 1: terrifying robotic beads. Discover this and more as we answer
Speaker 1: the age old question, can you really just turn sheep
Speaker 1: robots these days? Is that what we're doing? Are we
Speaker 1: turning birds to robots? Are you a robot? Are you
Speaker 1: a robot? Right now? Joining me today to discuss the
Speaker 1: singularity is friend of the show, My Poisonal Friend, director, writer,
Speaker 1: podcast host for Small Beans and the One Upmanship podcast,
Speaker 1: Adam Ganzer.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Oh love love being here, always a pleasure. Thank
Speaker 2: you for inviting me back. All of your questions are true?
Speaker 2: Those are the questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of questions we need to ask. Are
Speaker 1: you a robot?
Speaker 3: It's unconfirmed. Every time I check the box, though, I
Speaker 3: feel better about.
Speaker 1: Can you do the capture? Are you good?
Speaker 2: You can do? You can do a capture?
Speaker 1: Okay, well that's good. If you come upon a tortoise
Speaker 1: that's on its back, what do you.
Speaker 2: Do eat it right, that's the right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds human to me.
Speaker 2: Check that box for human.
Speaker 1: Check for humans. So yeah, we're talking about actual robots.
Speaker 1: Like it's not a metaphor just these are robots that
Speaker 1: people have built to research animals or to do weird
Speaker 1: things to animals. That sounded more menacing than it actually is,
Speaker 1: But we'll see anyways, or doesn't I am I feel
Speaker 1: like I don't know with all this like AI and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this this new AI sort of thing just dropped
Speaker 1: today where it's like AI videos, It's like it's both
Speaker 1: interesting and menacing. I don't know, Like I feel like
Speaker 1: you would have a unique perspective on this because you
Speaker 1: are a filmmaker as well, Like you're a director and
Speaker 1: you understand sort of the artistry that goes into shooting
Speaker 1: video and making film and so to have just a
Speaker 1: robot come in and be like bab boop, here's your
Speaker 1: movie seems I don't know, it seems like it's it's well,
Speaker 1: what do you think, Adam.
Speaker 3: Like full of Despair is the you're looking for? Deeply
Speaker 3: dark and disturbing.
Speaker 2: No, So, like I guess on some.
Speaker 3: Level, ultimately it's good for filmmakers, especially people who are
Speaker 3: not entrenched in the way things have been, right, Like,
Speaker 3: the younger you are at filmmaking this, the better this
Speaker 3: will be for you. You because ultimately, AI is still
Speaker 3: just a tool, you know what I mean? Like like
Speaker 3: AI is such a misnomer for what this is. It's
Speaker 3: just an extremely sophisticated tool that can do almost all
Speaker 3: the legwork of creating an image for you. You still
Speaker 3: have to shape it to make it mean something, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, filmmaking is still the conveyance of human emotion
Speaker 3: and meaning. AI can't do that. They can create images
Speaker 3: that are super well resourced and you know, rendered, but
Speaker 3: not meaningful unless you made it meaningful with the parameters.
Speaker 3: That's the difference that I don't see AI jumping over
Speaker 3: that chasm. That's a you know, yeah, I don't believe
Speaker 3: that that is that they are conscious or it will
Speaker 3: become conscious. I do not believe in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, robots would have to learn how to
Speaker 1: love first, and they have not yet.
Speaker 2: Good luck. I barely know.
Speaker 1: No, I agree. I think that with any new technology
Speaker 1: there's this initial like I guess because it's so novel
Speaker 1: and exciting, people use it in sort of cheesy ways.
Speaker 1: And then I think like later the artists like learn
Speaker 1: how to use it in a way that is actually art, right,
Speaker 1: like having an AI like poop out an image for
Speaker 1: your news station that doesn't really mean it, Like that's
Speaker 1: not art, that's vile. Well, virule can be art. But
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, it's.
Speaker 2: The same misunderstanding.
Speaker 3: It's the idea that the image is what makes it art,
Speaker 3: and right, we've already done enough art to know that
Speaker 3: isn't true. It's you know, like it's the same reason
Speaker 3: why I think AI is such a misnomer for what
Speaker 3: this is. It's the reduction of consciousness to being able
Speaker 3: to do all these complex processes.
Speaker 2: That's all that it is.
Speaker 1: It's an automation of process rather than like intelligence. I
Speaker 1: think that people when they think about art, right, like,
Speaker 1: there's sort of this idea that being really good at
Speaker 1: doing high fidelity stuff like making a painting that copies reality,
Speaker 1: do it like or in film, like having film that
Speaker 1: looks real, right, like like real life or sound design.
Speaker 1: And there's also like kind of hyper like like realism
Speaker 1: that becomes trophy where it's like we got to make
Speaker 1: the film really dark so it looks realistic, right, and
Speaker 1: the coloring, the tone and the shading and the lighting
Speaker 1: has to look real.
Speaker 2: And gritty, realistic.
Speaker 3: Is I'm putting air quotes up for that because that's
Speaker 3: you know, there's no that's no such thing.
Speaker 1: But you need a sound. We need a sound for
Speaker 1: air quotes.
Speaker 3: Air quotes, Yeah, like an air dog. It's funny that
Speaker 3: you say that, because like everything you're saying is exactly
Speaker 3: what most of art in the twentieth century is rebelling against, right.
Speaker 1: Exactly, like the like the postmodern yes.
Speaker 3: Well, and also you know the modernist stuff like Blo
Speaker 3: Picasso's work, yes, or Marcel Duchamp's work, right, yeah, or
Speaker 3: even Impressionists like Claude Monett. Those are guys who were
Speaker 3: rejecting the idea that that hyper fidelity to reality is
Speaker 3: the most artistic thing, right, you.
Speaker 1: Know, there's nothing wrong with it, Like like if you
Speaker 1: do a hyper if you're a really good painter and
Speaker 1: you can do a hyper realistic painting, that's a that
Speaker 1: is a skill. That's an amazing talent, and I'm jealous
Speaker 1: of it, which is why I'm talking it down. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think no, I think it's amazing and
Speaker 1: I but I think that like when you it is
Speaker 1: not just being able to recreate something realistically. While it
Speaker 1: takes a tremendous amount of skill. I think that if
Speaker 1: you're if you don't necessarily have like the technical skill
Speaker 1: to like recreate say like a perfect human hand, you
Speaker 1: may still have the creativity to make art, right Like
Speaker 1: you don't having a high fidelity thing doesn't isn't necessary
Speaker 1: for it to be art like, and you can learn
Speaker 1: you can learn technical skills, but you can also learn creativity.
Speaker 1: Like I don't think creativity is just something you're born with.
Speaker 1: Some people you can develop, yes, yeah, you can train it.
Speaker 1: You can learn creativity, yes, and so yeah, like these
Speaker 1: these tools, right, like so called AI art, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: so it's a tool so called it can be used
Speaker 1: I think creatively. I haven't seen it yet. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be honest with you. I've not seen someone in the hit.
Speaker 1: I have not seen AI in the hands of someone
Speaker 1: truly using it to its full artistic potential.
Speaker 2: But I would like to.
Speaker 3: I so, like I'm we're looking for Marcel to shomp here, right,
Speaker 3: Like that's that's that's the kind of figure we're looking for.
Speaker 3: It's a person who has a brain for what it
Speaker 3: is about AI that can be done artistically and haven't
Speaker 3: we haven't seen. I wish I was that guy, because man,
Speaker 3: I'd be changing the universe right now.
Speaker 2: But I'm not. I'm not yet that guy.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I mean I Ultimately a lot of the
Speaker 3: conversation around AI still kind of feels like it's based
Speaker 3: on movie tropes and the human need to control everything
Speaker 3: that you know, and AI is clearly not a thing
Speaker 3: that's gonna be controlled in the same way that a
Speaker 3: calculator will.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's.
Speaker 3: Gonna run, it's gonna be, it's gonna have consequences that
Speaker 3: are not you can't stop them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna be able to fence in all the
Speaker 2: things AI will do.
Speaker 3: And that's scary, but it not scary like the things
Speaker 3: we're actually afraid of, like it'll take over and replace your.
Speaker 1: Gap, right, not not that it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park situation where once you make a dinosaur, you
Speaker 1: can't uncork that dinosaur bottle.
Speaker 3: It's Pandora's Park's.
Speaker 1: Park exactly, Pandora's Box of velociraptors. Speaking of dinosaurs and
Speaker 1: oh AI we're talking about a robot dinosaur. This actually
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with ai ai is so missus
Speaker 1: I was wondering, this actually has to do with a
Speaker 1: just a mechanical robot dinosaur used to try to answer
Speaker 1: one of the questions of bird evolution. So one of
Speaker 1: the questions behind bird evolution is like we know that
Speaker 1: dinosaurs developed feathers and wings potentially before they were used
Speaker 1: for flight, and so why why did they have wings?
Speaker 1: Why did they have feathers? Like what purposes do they have?
Speaker 1: We have a lot of theories, these aren't mutually exclusive theories.
Speaker 1: So like one of them is that hollow bone structure, right,
Speaker 1: like with with the early birds mate have had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with flight, but with thermal regulation or being
Speaker 1: able to like run and thermal regulate, like feathers could
Speaker 1: have been for a warmth. There could have been a
Speaker 1: lot of different things for sexual signaling.
Speaker 2: And so the first thing that's the first thing to.
Speaker 1: Look hot, Yeah, exactly exactly. You might think humans are
Speaker 1: uniquely but a lot of animals just have a feature
Speaker 1: just to look hot, that's right. Another theory is that
Speaker 1: wings could have been used to flush out prey, so
Speaker 1: used in hunting so like you, basically there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of insects or small prey adding items hiding in a bush.
Speaker 1: How do you get them out of that bush? Well,
Speaker 1: if you flap your wings right and it scares them
Speaker 1: and they start and they run out of the bush.
Speaker 1: Then you grab them as they're fleeing. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: we know this is an actual behavior in modern dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: which are birds. So birds are the modern form of dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: They're the only like survivors of sort of the dinosaur times,
Speaker 1: and which you can tell I'm really good with the
Speaker 1: timeline when I'm calling it the dinosaur times.
Speaker 2: The time of the dinosaur.
Speaker 1: I don't know my Jurassic for my Cretaceous. But anyways,
Speaker 1: so the these birds do in fact use this flushing technique.
Speaker 1: So anything from like the Greater Run Greater road runner
Speaker 1: in California will do this to flesh out its prey.
Speaker 1: Uh to the Australian willy wagtail, which just sounds made up.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like a real bird, but.
Speaker 2: It is cartoon creature.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's like that's like, what's his name, Woody Woodpecker's
Speaker 1: rival willy wagtail.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that was a thing. Now I
Speaker 3: have a Saturday. You just gave me a Saturday finding
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 1: Seeing it woodpecker you haven't heard of.
Speaker 2: I know what he would pecker? Did he really have
Speaker 2: a rival that the same?
Speaker 1: It's just that there is a real It's just that
Speaker 1: there's a real bird called Willy wagtail, and I'm imagining
Speaker 1: in the Greater Woody wood Pecker cinematic universe that he
Speaker 1: has a rival named Willy Wagtail.
Speaker 2: God, I want to see that universe. Boy, get it.
Speaker 1: We can make it with AI. Can't wait. It'll look great.
Speaker 1: It will be uncanny at all type in uh uh
Speaker 1: boody woodpecker fighting williwagtail universe.
Speaker 2: Verse universe.
Speaker 1: See what it does? Okay? So yeah, and so yes,
Speaker 1: we know this behavior exists in modern birds. So could
Speaker 1: it have existed in dinosaurs? Well, a team of engineers
Speaker 1: and biological scientists were like, this is a great excuse
Speaker 1: to build a robot, and so in South Korea they
Speaker 1: did just that.
Speaker 2: Sure, why why do we need a robot for that? Still?
Speaker 1: Because number one, it's why not number one cool? Why
Speaker 1: are you even asking that we're building a dinosaur robot?
Speaker 1: But number two, to see if they can recreate the
Speaker 1: anatomy of a known dinosaur that was a bird like
Speaker 1: dinosaur that had wings that didn't fly. And if they
Speaker 1: could use that robot dinosaur to scare grassofs first.
Speaker 2: Then they know they were right.
Speaker 1: Then they'd know that they're right. It like, is this
Speaker 1: robot scared to grasshoppers?
Speaker 2: Check?
Speaker 3: So, by the way I'm looking at it, it's scary
Speaker 3: to everything. I don't know what they're proven with this.
Speaker 2: It's insane. It looks like a harbinger of doom. Like
Speaker 2: I think it's cute, Okay.
Speaker 1: Got a bit of a gothic waly kind of.
Speaker 2: It's like dark. It's got like wheels for legs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Adam, do you just have buckets of money to
Speaker 1: create realistic dinosaur bird legs?
Speaker 3: You're right, a robotic Who am I to question the
Speaker 3: fidelity of this task. I still don't even think you've
Speaker 3: given one legit reason to do it.
Speaker 2: But that's fine, no, So.
Speaker 1: So listen, the researchers created robot Jesus. This is a
Speaker 1: hard one robot to rix robopterrickx, a robot meant to
Speaker 1: mimic the anatomy of CODYP. Direx, which is a dinosaur
Speaker 1: that roamed Asia over one hundred and twenty five million
Speaker 1: years ago during the Early Cretaceous period. It was a flightless,
Speaker 1: bipedal bird like dinosaur with feathers wings, and a fan
Speaker 1: like tail. It was about the size of a turkey.
Speaker 1: So there's this thing now that is a robot version
Speaker 1: of this, but with wheels. Now, the original CODYP. Direx
Speaker 1: did not have wheels. It had like ah, so little problem,
Speaker 1: no little note might change the results of the experiment
Speaker 1: peer review note why wheels. So they experimented with different
Speaker 1: wing colorations, sort of wing movements, and if you watch
Speaker 1: a video of it, it looks pretty cool, man, Like
Speaker 1: the wing movements.
Speaker 2: I don't know, sure, yes, yeah, yeah, I'd buy it.
Speaker 3: They're also very funny, like no robot has ever yet
Speaker 3: escaped being funny from my opinion, like from my vantage point, honestly,
Speaker 3: like like, you know, I'm talking about real robots, not
Speaker 3: the ones that are in movies that are you know,
Speaker 3: they don't have to really be robots.
Speaker 2: This one has to really be a robot and it's
Speaker 2: still funny. Look at it.
Speaker 3: It's I mean, you can't because it's a podcast, But man,
Speaker 3: listen to if you're listening to the podcast, just look
Speaker 3: at it.
Speaker 1: It'll be in the show notes. I will link to
Speaker 1: the video in the show notes. I do look at it.
Speaker 1: There is a New York Times article about it. If
Speaker 1: you look for robotic wing dinosaur New York Times, you'll
Speaker 1: find it. But I'll also link to it in the
Speaker 1: show notes. It's really funny, and so they did indeed
Speaker 1: find that when the robopter ricks. Ugh, that's a word
Speaker 1: that doesn't come out of the mouth.
Speaker 2: Good fix it, scientists, come on, man.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 1: Yes, when the grasshoppers are faced with this robot dinosaur
Speaker 1: and it flaps its wings, the grasshoppers get scared and
Speaker 1: hop slash fly away. So interestingly, this was only tested
Speaker 1: on like thirty grasshoppers. I don't know why they didn't
Speaker 1: just make it like one hundred grasshoppers. Uh, increase those
Speaker 1: that significance s fellas, But like I guess it's hard
Speaker 1: to find grasshoppers to sign up for an experiment where
Speaker 1: they get scared by a robot dinosaur. I don't know,
Speaker 1: do it on more grasshoppers, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, literally, everything about this sounds like a scam. Like,
Speaker 3: nothing about this it sounds like any real science was done.
Speaker 3: It really sounds like a dude wanted grant money to
Speaker 3: build an awesome dinosaur.
Speaker 2: I get some bolt. None of this is real.
Speaker 1: I think that wanting to build a cool robot is
Speaker 1: a huge part of this. And yeah, like I think
Speaker 1: they knew that if they're, like, we built a robot dinosaur,
Speaker 1: they would get a ton of press attention, they would
Speaker 1: get the funding. Sure, this is this is like, this
Speaker 1: is a honey pot for UH funders, like like looking
Speaker 1: at like T cell receptors in my boring ooh robot dinosaur.
Speaker 3: Hello, Yeah, it's definitely a sexy idea for a project.
Speaker 2: Like and I'm and I'm not impugning you at all.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't sound very scientific to me, man, it
Speaker 3: really doesn't.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I don't bring up these studies to say, look,
Speaker 1: how good and perfect to this study is. I bring
Speaker 1: it up because it is really funny. So I think
Speaker 1: that skepticism. I think that skepticism is healthy and all.
Speaker 1: All I mean honestly, like, and we'll talk more about
Speaker 1: these like because I'm I'm not like I have not
Speaker 1: fully embraced the UH research robustness of this robot dinosaur.
Speaker 1: I think it's very cool. Like I think it's awesome
Speaker 1: that they don't just think it's a door. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: I do not believe this is conclusive proof that birdling
Speaker 1: dinosaurs use this flapping technique to flush out prey. I
Speaker 1: think it shows that it's possible.
Speaker 2: Sure, maybe they did.
Speaker 3: I feel like the existence of birds doing it proves
Speaker 3: it's possible, you know what I mean? Like, that's the
Speaker 3: thing is like we already have enough to I don't
Speaker 3: think we've advanced any information from this robot doing it.
Speaker 2: It's you know, a.
Speaker 1: Little superfluous, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Yes, if a bird does it and they and they
Speaker 3: use wings and their theory is what if it was
Speaker 3: just like birds do it? Then you build a thing
Speaker 3: that does it kind of and tests it on like
Speaker 3: six grasshoppers.
Speaker 2: What have you proved?
Speaker 1: Man? It is thirty grasshoppers to thirty fair give me.
Speaker 1: We will discuss another. We will discuss another one where
Speaker 1: it's like six bees that.
Speaker 2: This is.
Speaker 3: I am in love with this topic. Wow, you've really
Speaker 3: done it today. Okay, this is really so.
Speaker 1: This is But like the reason I bring up like
Speaker 1: sample size and stuff is like whenever you read a
Speaker 1: cool article about a study, they usually do link you
Speaker 1: to the actual research paper and there's jump on down
Speaker 1: to the method section because that is always wild. Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I I you don't necessarily have to like have be
Speaker 1: able to understand statistical methodology or anything too complex. But
Speaker 1: sometimes when you go to the method section in a
Speaker 1: research paper, you will find some interesting buried bodies in
Speaker 1: there that are funny or sometimes like the research can
Speaker 1: be really good and it's just really funny. Like I
Speaker 1: once read a paper where like the in the this
Speaker 1: was not mentioned right like in like the article about it,
Speaker 1: but it was like they did. They just created like
Speaker 1: a bunch of different images of like human and primate butts,
Speaker 1: and that's just it's wonderful.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful what people that's hel for all we can
Speaker 2: all use.
Speaker 1: And like, So basically what I'm saying is, I would
Speaker 1: I think that there's interesting applications of this robot. I
Speaker 1: certainly prefer this to like using robots for like police dogs,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Oh yeah, I think this
Speaker 1: is much cooler, much more pro social than using robots
Speaker 1: to like spy on us.
Speaker 3: I would love to see all the packages that are
Speaker 3: being delivered by robots done by this thing. You know
Speaker 3: its packages here, you know like here it is.
Speaker 2: That's pretty great.
Speaker 1: I have delivered your la CROs.
Speaker 2: That it bows to you, It takes off, that's all
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 1: Away away, rolls away on it slowly. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: know phase one of the conductorists. I would say, it's
Speaker 1: not there yet.
Speaker 2: It's not there yet. Question.
Speaker 1: But I think with more funding we could make a
Speaker 1: real uh interesting thing here. Let's keep let's keep spending
Speaker 1: money on it.
Speaker 3: This is not a finished product. Who knows the limitations
Speaker 3: for this? The sky's the limit? How far can these
Speaker 3: wings store?
Speaker 2: We all agree.
Speaker 3: I just want to add, based on a light dusting
Speaker 3: of googling, I do think this robot operated on AI.
Speaker 2: Oh really interesting?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's I mean I can't quite get to the article,
Speaker 3: but like the headline here, robot robotix, an AI based
Speaker 3: system is demonstrating. Yeah, me too, but maybe that's maybe
Speaker 3: that justifies what this robots doing, right.
Speaker 1: I think it may be operate like it might not
Speaker 1: so much be AI but on wing physics modeling that
Speaker 1: is used to me, which is an AI. But I
Speaker 1: mean what is AI?
Speaker 3: You know we could spend another ten on that easy.
Speaker 3: We can spend all day on it, uh and have
Speaker 3: contributed literally nothing to the conversation.
Speaker 1: Right now. I think I think it. I think I
Speaker 1: think what it used was like models of bird wing
Speaker 1: flapping physics slash behavior to guide the bird wing motion. Sure,
Speaker 1: but sure, I don't I don't know if I would
Speaker 1: call that AI.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's definitely not some dude with a crank
Speaker 3: on the backs doing this crank in the crank of
Speaker 3: the winds flap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it. It's got to be a little bit.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that like using sort of real The
Speaker 1: thing that's exciting about this to me is that recreating
Speaker 1: an extinct animal and then testing some of its behaviors
Speaker 1: in real world situations, Uh, is really cool. That's cool.
Speaker 1: I think that is that could teach us things about
Speaker 1: extinct animals. Uh. And it could also it's also like
Speaker 1: even animals that are not extinct, but figuring out out
Speaker 1: how to create sort of like robot versions of animals
Speaker 1: to do sort of like certain tests on can could
Speaker 1: be really interesting.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to talk talk about some.
Speaker 1: More of those. First, we're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break while I ask Adam some questions that only the
Speaker 1: real human atom would know.
Speaker 3: M don't get Yeah, look out, turtles, I'm hungry.
Speaker 1: So, Adam, what sounds more refreshing to you? A glass
Speaker 1: of water or a glass of motor oil for robots?
Speaker 2: I know the correct answer. Yeah, it's water, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, human human.
Speaker 2: Checkbot check them.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about robot bees. This study
Speaker 1: is so funny, and look, I I love it and
Speaker 1: I think it's very When I make critiques of this study,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the researchers are bad or that we
Speaker 1: should dismiss it, but I even they acknowledge that this
Speaker 1: is like kind of a prototype, and so keep that
Speaker 1: in keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: I think all robot animals can be called a prototype
Speaker 2: at this point.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the Have you seen that that Spy
Speaker 1: in the Wild Nature show? Like it's okay, so it's
Speaker 1: it's incredible. We're not really talking about that kind of
Speaker 1: robot today, but like it's where they created sort of
Speaker 1: realistic ish looking robots to put amongst the animals, and
Speaker 1: then they put a camera in the robot to like
Speaker 1: capture the animals and the here's what's funny about that
Speaker 1: show is that the premise is that, look, we can
Speaker 1: get a camera inside these robots and observe behavior that
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be able to observe otherwise because you're infiltrating, right,
Speaker 1: Like you have a robot Langer or a robot wolf
Speaker 1: or whatever, or a robot fish, and so we can
Speaker 1: observe these behaviors that otherwise the animals would be too
Speaker 1: shy to do in front of the human And I
Speaker 1: swear like eighty percent to ninety percent of the footage
Speaker 1: in that show is by another camera, so like a
Speaker 1: camera taking video of like the robot camera and the
Speaker 1: animals interacting with the robots. It's like, is it really
Speaker 1: about the camera? I mean there's there's some footage from
Speaker 1: like the robot. Yes, they do include that. It's usually
Speaker 1: not as good as the human.
Speaker 3: Pot well, right, because you don't want to be a
Speaker 3: pack animal in the pack.
Speaker 2: That's not fun to watch.
Speaker 3: You want to see what the pack does from the outside, which, yes,
Speaker 3: that's just a pure.
Speaker 4: Filmmaking thing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, just I want to I think I
Speaker 3: want to plant my flag on this point, like just
Speaker 3: it's a philosophical thing. I am in favor of scientists
Speaker 3: doing awesome things.
Speaker 2: For its own sake. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, like like I'm not sure how much scientific
Speaker 3: value there was on landing on the Moon, but hey man,
Speaker 3: we did it, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's cool, right, I think, yes, I think
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of utility in cool science things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: inspire people, And it's almost it's like art in a way, right,
Speaker 1: where it's like, what's the point of doing art? Like
Speaker 1: there's no necessarily purely practical thing. It's just enriching. And
Speaker 1: so sometimes just like why do we need to figure
Speaker 1: out be communication using a robot? We don't really need to,
Speaker 1: but it's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but look at that, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're talking about we're talking about robot bees.
Speaker 1: There is some research that uses robot bees to infiltrate
Speaker 1: a hive to learn the art of be dance. Now, Adam,
Speaker 1: do you know sort of the general just about bee dancing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I understand it, it is part of their
Speaker 3: bee mating ritual, Like they go to bee clubs, you know,
Speaker 3: after they at hard b nine to five jobs and
Speaker 3: cut loose a little bit?
Speaker 2: Am I right about this? No?
Speaker 1: No, no, sadly no, I mean you would be right,
Speaker 1: that kind of guess would be right for like so
Speaker 1: many animals when you're like, why does this animal dance
Speaker 1: but not bees? Bees dance mainly to locate food. So
Speaker 1: a bee will So most of these are sisters, right,
Speaker 1: These are bees and a hive, and they're mostly worker bees,
Speaker 1: and so they're mostly sisters, and so they will wiggle
Speaker 1: they're abdomen to indicate where a food source is, basically
Speaker 1: where there are some flowers or nectar that can be found,
Speaker 1: and the other bees watch them and then they go
Speaker 1: and they find this food source. So this is like
Speaker 1: an established thing. This is not what they're researching, but
Speaker 1: that bees use the language of dance to communicate where
Speaker 1: uh there.
Speaker 2: Is food, as do I?
Speaker 1: Just like you dirate in the direction of the McDonald.
Speaker 3: Yes, this way you can't see it, but it was
Speaker 3: glorious what I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's the they Basically, these bees are like
Speaker 1: the sign spinners. I have not seen a spot sign
Speaker 1: spinner in a hot minute. Is that not a job anymore?
Speaker 3: I think they're gone. I mean I think there's no
Speaker 3: stores mans COVID destroyed stores.
Speaker 2: What do I need to Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why, Like people are asking demeaning things of
Speaker 1: their Amazon delivery people like, could you do a cool
Speaker 1: dance for me? I have to pee in a water bottle.
Speaker 1: But okay, so I already did one for Jeff this morning,
Speaker 1: so yes, so uh, essentially yes, bees waggle their bodies
Speaker 1: in a dance to communicate. So there is of course
Speaker 1: in in decoding this language of dance. But how do
Speaker 1: you decode B dance and have a B co conspirator
Speaker 1: who does just certain types of dances and sort of
Speaker 1: a in an experimental setting. Well, you can't just like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of convince a bee to do your research.
Speaker 1: So you need a robot b a highly sophisticated, extremely detailed,
Speaker 1: cleverly disguised robot. So adam, here it is.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I can't even wait. This is a
Speaker 3: thrilling moment. This is whatever this turns out to be,
Speaker 3: where it's taking us is going to be awful.
Speaker 1: You know, I sent it to you in the in
Speaker 1: the chat.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, okay.
Speaker 1: What yeah, So it's not really you know, it's a prototype.
Speaker 1: It is a plas stick like kind of looks like
Speaker 1: a plastic pill with like a piece of square plastic
Speaker 1: on it, which is like the wing attachment and then
Speaker 1: a huge metal rod which is like a mechanical shaft
Speaker 1: that is used to like control the bee. It's not
Speaker 1: really fooling me.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't do it for me. I'm surprised any
Speaker 3: be's taking it seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like, I mean, it's the equivalent of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you're a robot, sort of painting
Speaker 1: your metal chassis like sort of a beige color and
Speaker 1: then shuffling in to a supermarket and being like, hello,
Speaker 1: I am one of you, and you're just angular.
Speaker 2: And do you have cupons being.
Speaker 1: Covered in wires? I have heard that you trade coupons
Speaker 1: for sustenance. Yeah, so this b maybe not the most
Speaker 1: convincing thing, but yes, this is uh the handiwork of
Speaker 1: robot us his named Tim Tim Langraf at the University
Speaker 1: of Berlin and his team. Before you mock, remember bees
Speaker 1: are dumb. Maybe they'll just sure enough be fooled by
Speaker 1: this chull little fake bee. So yeah, what they did
Speaker 1: was they they did actually kind of an interesting like
Speaker 1: I mean, some would potentially call this AI incorrectly in
Speaker 1: my opinion, it is where they use like a a
Speaker 1: model uh to uh basically like modeled on actual B
Speaker 1: dances and then programmed the robot B with these like
Speaker 1: B dances that were done with sort of a you know,
Speaker 1: like a sort of this this more or less complex
Speaker 1: like learning model, and then it does a dance and
Speaker 1: then sometimes the bees pay attention to it, sometimes they don't.
Speaker 1: About six bees were the ones that ended up paying
Speaker 1: attention to this bee dancing.
Speaker 2: And they were drunk.
Speaker 1: There's this guy.
Speaker 2: Oh it's cool.
Speaker 1: I think I think she's one of us girls. And
Speaker 1: so they then would like if a bee was seen
Speaker 1: to be like paying attention to the robot B and
Speaker 1: like tracking the bee dance. When it flew off, it
Speaker 1: was snatched and a radio antenna was attached.
Speaker 2: To Oh my god, just a.
Speaker 1: Normal day for this bee, Like, right, is that a robot?
Speaker 1: I'm getting out of here. It's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: get a big antenna on my head now normal times.
Speaker 3: This is the worst roof ever for a bee, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. They get into this dance, they're like, okay, cool,
Speaker 3: let's go back.
Speaker 2: To your place. Nope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, oh, you know, take any show where
Speaker 1: like people are replaced by robots. But it's just like
Speaker 1: a huge antenna on your head. It's like, uh, something
Speaker 1: different about you, Susan, I don't know what you are
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 2: No, I remain equivalent to before.
Speaker 1: No, but these bees, these bees aren't turned into robots.
Speaker 1: They're just uh, they're just tracked with these radio antenna.
Speaker 1: And then essentially the idea is that this robot bee
Speaker 1: is trying to communicate to them a new source of food.
Speaker 1: So if they go and they find this new location
Speaker 1: where they previously would not expect to find food, but
Speaker 1: then you know they go after watching this bee dance,
Speaker 1: it would be proof of concept that you can teach
Speaker 1: bees where to find food with a robotic bee dance,
Speaker 1: and you know they seem to find it and maybe
Speaker 1: six bees. So yeah, here's here's the issue.
Speaker 2: Here's the issue.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 3: If I've seen nothing but issues with this this So
Speaker 3: you have to look at this thing a long time
Speaker 3: to think it looks like a bee, Like, it takes
Speaker 3: you a really long time to figure out is it
Speaker 3: a bee?
Speaker 2: How is it a bee?
Speaker 1: You imagine if your brain was the size of a
Speaker 1: bee's brain though, right, Like, I guess how that would feel.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I mean. One of the issues, of
Speaker 1: course is the very small sample size of six bees.
Speaker 1: Of course, also it doesn't seem like they were able
Speaker 1: to compare that behavior to a really large like control group,
Speaker 1: like they did try to have a control group, but
Speaker 1: that also seemed like to be only a couple of
Speaker 1: bees or a handful of bees, which I feel like
Speaker 1: robust research demands more than a handful of bees. You
Speaker 1: need more bees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, more bees.
Speaker 1: As someone who's not a robotic system or sort of
Speaker 1: a professional in any sense in any field, more bees,
Speaker 1: I would say it's at least eighty percent more bees.
Speaker 1: You're gonna need more bees. Repeat the study, get more
Speaker 1: funding for your cool robot. B make it better because
Speaker 1: and more guys like more more of a bee.
Speaker 2: Make it more of a thank you.
Speaker 1: It's it's not giving be to me now. They they
Speaker 1: they admit to this in their in their paper that like,
Speaker 1: this is a prototype. We think that with higher fidelity,
Speaker 1: more bees might pay attention. So you think fun, Yeah,
Speaker 1: fund this research, get the bee, the robot, be more realistic.
Speaker 1: I want more passion, more movement or energy from this bee,
Speaker 1: and do it on more bees, Like I'm gonna need this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need at least a control group of like
Speaker 1: at least fifty bees, test group of at least fifty bees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, those are minimumsbes, that's that minimum.
Speaker 3: That's minimum in my writer to care about this, right,
Speaker 3: This bee feels like that Steve Bishemi meme where he's
Speaker 3: like dressed like a child at a high school.
Speaker 2: He's like, hello, fellow kids, that's a fellow bees. That's
Speaker 2: what this is. Yes, uh yeah, you ever watched air Bud.
Speaker 1: I know the concept of it that it's a dog
Speaker 1: who joins a basketball team because the rules do not
Speaker 1: apply sipically say, the rules don't specifically say you can't
Speaker 1: be a dog in basketball.
Speaker 2: That's right, they don't. That's correct, they don't.
Speaker 3: So what I my understanding about air Bud is Airbud
Speaker 3: is what you might call conglomeration of fifteen different dogs
Speaker 3: or like twenty different dogs, all of whom are good
Speaker 3: at one thing. Right, This dog's good at sitting. This
Speaker 3: dog is good at high fiving.
Speaker 1: In terms of the film you're talking about the film,
Speaker 1: the movie is not about a hyper dog.
Speaker 2: That's not many dogs.
Speaker 1: Although that would be.
Speaker 2: Cool, that would be better than what they did.
Speaker 1: I get notice of a Clifford where it's like one
Speaker 1: big dog biological dogs.
Speaker 2: Let's take them all together, twenty.
Speaker 1: Dogs that like stand on each other and sort of
Speaker 1: form a giant dog, and then they can split off
Speaker 1: and do their own dogs like.
Speaker 2: A school of dogs. Yeah, totally cool of dogs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a school of golden true came out of just
Speaker 1: like lying down and having a stampede of dogs run
Speaker 1: over you. That would be cute.
Speaker 2: And anyway, point being.
Speaker 3: I think that this bee experiment is kind of the
Speaker 3: air Bud of experiments in that they just kind of
Speaker 3: need to make a bee that does more stuff like
Speaker 3: the one the one be does isn't very good.
Speaker 2: You know, like.
Speaker 3: Maybe it would work better if they had a bee
Speaker 3: that also was good at you know, making honey or whatever.
Speaker 2: Maybe they would trust the bee more if it did
Speaker 2: more stuff. That's the point.
Speaker 1: Tell's good bee joke, right.
Speaker 2: It's just you know, a social bee, you know, like
Speaker 2: just better at stuff.
Speaker 1: Guess what I'm cooking for dinner tonight, girls, paul In.
Speaker 2: With one appendage.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, maybe I think honestly, like I would be
Speaker 1: satisfied with just more bees being studied, Like six six
Speaker 1: bees doesn't do it for me with a small control group,
Speaker 1: because like, could the bees not have found the food
Speaker 1: by chance? Right, like or by some other means of
Speaker 1: finding this food. I think that it's a very like
Speaker 1: I think it's a good start, Like I think it's
Speaker 1: a really strong, like first proof of concept. And what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is this is a great proof of concept.
Speaker 1: Give me more. I want more of this robot bee.
Speaker 1: I want to see it, you know, go like I
Speaker 1: want DARPA to fund this, like make up some war purpose,
Speaker 1: say like this bee can be used to kill people.
Speaker 3: Of that's the thing about robot bees, man, you just
Speaker 3: you just pointed out that's where it inevitably ends, is
Speaker 3: that you know, use them for.
Speaker 1: Attacks, right, But then you know this is okay, So
Speaker 1: we all know that the military will fun thing that sure,
Speaker 1: like and DARPA and stuff. The coolest robots are the
Speaker 1: ones where it's like, could this be used to hurt people?
Speaker 1: And so what what I would like to see is
Speaker 1: like the cool studies that are like harmless about like, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to teach a robot be how to dance
Speaker 1: and communicate to other bees, because that is really cool.
Speaker 1: But just tell DARPA that this bee will be deadly.
Speaker 1: Don't actually make it deadly, just be like we're working
Speaker 1: on it. First, we've got to understand, we've got to basically,
Speaker 1: we will teach these bees war and through the robot bees.
Speaker 1: The robot bee will teach them war through dance. You
Speaker 1: know that won't happen. But dark.
Speaker 2: No, exactly tell them just make.
Speaker 1: Stuff up about bees like be like bees could be
Speaker 1: trained to be military soldiers. They won't check. They're not
Speaker 1: checking that stuff.
Speaker 3: The only thing they know is that you can get
Speaker 3: six bees to do literally anything.
Speaker 2: So that's not a plan. It's nothing.
Speaker 1: What I mean, well, it's not nothing. It's six bees.
Speaker 3: Though, Look, I can get six bees hold any opinion
Speaker 3: on like eight chan man, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like I could, I could get six bees to do
Speaker 3: literally anything. You know, Like that's not a conclusive amount
Speaker 3: of bees for anything.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's not a bee core. It's more like a bee Supreme.
Speaker 2: Court exactly, thank you, exactly.
Speaker 1: How many bees. We should increase the number of bees
Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court to.
Speaker 2: At least thirteen thirteen Baker's doesn't.
Speaker 1: The bees a Baker's doesn't plus.
Speaker 2: One to break the tie break the b tie.
Speaker 1: More bees, more bees, please? All right? So armed share
Speaker 1: armchair robotic b experts here way.
Speaker 2: They could have asked. They could have asked us.
Speaker 1: They could have asked, they could have asked.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't have had to We wouldn't have had to
Speaker 2: do this if they'd asked, you know.
Speaker 1: So I if it were me funding this study, I
Speaker 1: would say I'd fund it. Just make it more bees.
Speaker 2: I love how many times you've said it now, it's exactly.
Speaker 3: That was the last one, exactly the amount of times
Speaker 3: that was needed for them to get it right.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times I have to say it.
Speaker 1: I won't say it again. So we're gonna we're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break. When we get back, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the frightening dystopia of using robots
Speaker 1: to do sheep dogs work, and then also play a little.
Speaker 2: Game, right of games.
Speaker 1: Adam, robots are coming for the jobs of hard working
Speaker 1: American dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you had to know it. Dog should
Speaker 2: have seen that coming.
Speaker 1: Doug should have seen that coming, just like Airbud, like.
Speaker 2: One of the dogs from Air Budget, not all of them,
Speaker 2: just one of them did.
Speaker 1: Just like how they're trying to replace air Bud with AI.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the AI. A lot of
Speaker 1: the AI videos actually that I saw were like animals
Speaker 1: doing stuff. There's one with like Golden Retriever puppies playing
Speaker 1: in the snow, and like part of me is like
Speaker 1: this is cute. And then there's like there are things
Speaker 1: that are still kind of off in the videos, like
Speaker 1: maybe a puppy's leg will appear out of nowhere, or
Speaker 1: like a puppy will sort of like just ooze out
Speaker 1: of another puppy, and so but it's very it's like
Speaker 1: subtle enough that my brain isn't fast enough to catch
Speaker 1: up to like what exactly is the problem. It's just
Speaker 1: like I feel icky. These puppies are making me feel
Speaker 1: bad inside. Usually they make me feel warm, but they're
Speaker 1: making me feel kind of bad. YEA the key inside
Speaker 1: And then you you play the footage, right, you replay
Speaker 1: the footage and you realize, like one of the puppies
Speaker 1: has like a sixth leg that just kind of poinked
Speaker 1: out of its chest.
Speaker 2: It was a problem. I'm worried.
Speaker 3: I'm worried that one day AI is going to get
Speaker 3: good at this so that that doesn't happen. Anymore, and
Speaker 3: then you'll like the cumulative effect of it will be
Speaker 3: that we just stop enjoining dog videos like that right
Speaker 3: where it's like because I kind of feel like part
Speaker 3: of the appeal of a dog video is seeing knowing
Speaker 3: a dog did that, you know what I mean, if
Speaker 3: AI did it, it's like, well, nor do I care
Speaker 3: about that, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, Like if it's like if my dog farts, that's
Speaker 1: hilarious and cute. If it's like a robot going like
Speaker 1: I am about to fart, fart, nice, it's not fun. Really,
Speaker 1: it's not cute, not really, it's just disgusting. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think also there's a possibility that it
Speaker 1: goes into the snack food sort of root, which is
Speaker 1: hyper like hyper optimizing AI puppies to be as like
Speaker 1: lab tested cute as possible, to sort of strike the
Speaker 1: cuteness thing sort of like you know, like how like
Speaker 1: snack food like cheetahs and stuff, they like test them
Speaker 1: over and over until they reach like a maximum flavor
Speaker 1: point and like melt in your mouth, so like people
Speaker 1: just eat it and they don't even know they're eating it.
Speaker 2: It just happens.
Speaker 1: I think there might be the same thing with AI
Speaker 1: generated puppies where they are optimized to be as cute
Speaker 1: as possible, and then when you look at a real puppy,
Speaker 1: you're like trash.
Speaker 2: You're a trash dog.
Speaker 1: That's trash. Give me the AI puppies.
Speaker 2: I hope that's not true. I hope.
Speaker 3: I think I'm probably wrong, but I kind of hope
Speaker 3: that the effect of that will be sort of like
Speaker 3: that movie Alita Battle Angel.
Speaker 2: You've seen that movie where like they tried.
Speaker 1: That's the one with the like brat Styll.
Speaker 2: Robot.
Speaker 3: I kind of feel like, ultimately we end up sort
Speaker 3: of making weird monster things when we try to maximize cuteness,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Like I might be wrong
Speaker 3: about that, but I kind I kind of feel like
Speaker 3: I'm not though, you know what I mean, Like where
Speaker 3: it is actually off putting when you get closer to
Speaker 3: a consensus.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: There are specific things in human psychology that give me hope,
Speaker 1: like the fact that there's this phenomenon where people when
Speaker 1: they watch like sports, they don't really like to watch
Speaker 1: like they like to watch it live when other people
Speaker 1: are watching it literally has no like and even before
Speaker 1: like mass social media, this was the case it's like
Speaker 1: it does not have an effect, right, like if you
Speaker 1: watch it live versus you tape it and then watch
Speaker 1: it later, Like there's actually an effect in terms of
Speaker 1: how you feel about it, even though it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's the same experience, but people really like feeling like
Speaker 1: they're watching it with the rest of the world, like
Speaker 1: there is a there there is a feeling of like
Speaker 1: I want the puppy that I'm looking into its deep
Speaker 1: brown eyes to actually be a feeling, thinking creature. I
Speaker 1: think this is why, like robotic pets never took off. Remember,
Speaker 1: like there was a whole thing about like robot puppies
Speaker 1: and robotic pets, and they never really that did not
Speaker 1: become a big thing because I think people one of
Speaker 1: the things people like about pets is that this is
Speaker 1: a sentient creature. It's not just a soft, mindless like
Speaker 1: lump of warm fur that I can pet. It actually
Speaker 1: has a brain and when I pet it, it is happy.
Speaker 1: When I give it a treat, it is happy. You
Speaker 1: can't get the same thing out of a robot or
Speaker 1: an AI, and so I think people really need that.
Speaker 1: So I don't think real puppies are going anywhere.
Speaker 2: We're not getting rid of puppies yet. Puppies are keeping
Speaker 2: their job and we're keeping them safe. That's a safe
Speaker 2: stance for the podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's a hot take, but we might get rid
Speaker 1: of herding dogs. Well probably not, but well no, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I'm I'm kind of joking. I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of dog breeds just we will keep
Speaker 1: because I think that we like in terms of like
Speaker 1: sheep herding, even though that might not be used in
Speaker 1: a commercial since anymore. I think that there will still
Speaker 1: be like basically done as like a hobby.
Speaker 2: Or keep the traditional babe babe.
Speaker 1: Like like the movie Babe exactly like there will there
Speaker 1: will always be a babe. Yes, there will always be
Speaker 1: a pig proven.
Speaker 2: His worth, so uh, thank god for that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, researchers are looking into like using robots to
Speaker 1: herd animals sometimes in farm settings, like those horrifying robot
Speaker 1: dogs being used to herd animals, which is you know, man,
Speaker 1: what a metaphor? Am I right?
Speaker 3: I mean it's funny because I'm thinking about this right
Speaker 3: now as you're saying it and realize it. I mean,
Speaker 3: dogs are essentially we've essentially trained dogs to do this anyway,
Speaker 3: so it's like hard for me to get super up
Speaker 3: in arms for.
Speaker 2: The dog's job. But I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, because like I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, this may be my ignorance, but dogs weren't
Speaker 3: hurting sheep before human beings trained them to do it?
Speaker 2: Were they.
Speaker 1: No it? Actually they had to be trained out of
Speaker 1: actually like attacking this right of course, it is a
Speaker 1: predatory behavior that's been pulled back, so they don't actually
Speaker 1: attack the sheep, but they go after them, and then
Speaker 1: they pay attention to the human. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that like in terms of dog and human happiness, I
Speaker 1: think working together with dogs can be deeply enriching and
Speaker 1: something like hurting as long as it's in a farm
Speaker 1: that is well run and stuff, I think that can
Speaker 1: be you know, enjoyable for both the human and dog.
Speaker 1: But you know, there are certain situations where it might
Speaker 1: be dangerous for a dog, and I would not have
Speaker 1: a problem with a robot being sent in and like
Speaker 1: I said, situation where like like especially with say like
Speaker 1: maybe like a bomb stiff.
Speaker 2: Dog or something that.
Speaker 1: Instead of dog, right exactly, yeah, exactly, And so like
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't like the use of dogs in
Speaker 1: sort of combat situation. So, uh, but like, I also
Speaker 1: don't like combat situations in hopes like keeping puppies. I
Speaker 1: don't want to go to war with Can we that's
Speaker 1: just my.
Speaker 2: Can we just stop it?
Speaker 1: I mean, y'all aren't ready to hear this, but can
Speaker 1: we stop?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, there's also something called bioherding, where you're like
Speaker 1: actually hurting animals that are wild animals not in farms
Speaker 1: to like maintain sort of like either the safety of
Speaker 1: the animals or like safely kind of try to separate
Speaker 1: human activity and animal activity. Like say, like you maybe
Speaker 1: use a drone to herd birds away from like a
Speaker 1: wind farm or airports, right to prevent them from getting
Speaker 1: sucked into a wind turbine or colliding with a plane.
Speaker 1: So like having a drone doing this might actually be
Speaker 1: like useful because hey, you know, you're telling the bird,
Speaker 1: like get away from this airport. This airplane wants to eat.
Speaker 2: True. Sure, I see that that makes sense.
Speaker 1: There's also been research where they've used drones essentially to
Speaker 1: herd birds, but it was a robotic falcon, so a
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. An aerial a drone shaped like a falcon,
Speaker 1: which I know there's I know there's this internet joke
Speaker 1: of like the bird birds aren't real, kind of like
Speaker 1: where you know it's the whole thing, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: we know birds are real, but this one specifically is not.
Speaker 1: It's it's a robotic falcon. And research is at the
Speaker 1: University of Grown in Gin. I don't that's not a
Speaker 1: word I can say good and the University of London
Speaker 1: found that they could use this robot falcon to trigger
Speaker 1: a fear response in pigeons.
Speaker 2: Of course stop, I.
Speaker 1: Mean like, obviously you're going to scare these but this
Speaker 1: is actually.
Speaker 2: Another thing that didn't need to be proved, did We
Speaker 2: didn't need to.
Speaker 1: Prove that to be fair. To be fair, they're looking
Speaker 1: at something deeper than this. This is actually I like this.
Speaker 1: This is I think my in terms of methodology, I
Speaker 1: think uh one of my uh, I like this study.
Speaker 1: I think it's other than scaring being mean to pigeons,
Speaker 1: which I don't like, Uh, it is it seems pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: So they found that when they would scare the pigeons
Speaker 1: with the falcon, what they were specifically looking at was
Speaker 1: flocking behavior in these pigeons to see if they would
Speaker 1: like there's this idea of selfish flocking where if like
Speaker 1: you're the safest position in a flock would be like
Speaker 1: in the middle, right, like protected, protect yourself, And so
Speaker 1: the idea would be like maybe there's some like flocks
Speaker 1: of birds where there are permutations of these birds because
Speaker 1: individuals keep trying to get in the middle, right, and
Speaker 1: so it's like a sort of this effect of like
Speaker 1: everyone's trying to shove their way into the middle. But
Speaker 1: they looked at this in these homing pigeons and they
Speaker 1: did not find this. So they found that the pigeons
Speaker 1: of flocking behavior was you know, they were not trying
Speaker 1: to vuy for this center position that they were. They
Speaker 1: did in fact run away from or not run away,
Speaker 1: fly away from the falcon bot, but that they were
Speaker 1: not trying to like shove their way into the middle.
Speaker 1: They seemed to be just kind of like following each
Speaker 1: other and going getting trying to get away from the falcons. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the homing pigeons are nice. I guess it's
Speaker 1: not really about being nice. It's about like probably this
Speaker 1: system of not trying to scoot your way into the
Speaker 1: middle actually create some more stable safe for a situation
Speaker 1: for all the pigeons.
Speaker 3: But still I kind of wish they'd do that on
Speaker 3: airlines so we didn't have all this you know, economy
Speaker 3: plus and first class and like all this class warfare.
Speaker 3: Just get a robot falcon the scare us into our seats,
Speaker 3: you know, the way better.
Speaker 1: Planes are not so the the like seating on planes
Speaker 1: are usually done to try to incentivize people to try
Speaker 1: more expensive tickets, because if you want the most efficient seating,
Speaker 1: you would see like from back to front. Obviously you
Speaker 1: don't see it from from the book back, but you know,
Speaker 1: they got it. They gotta like have you be sort
Speaker 1: of like walk of shame past everyone in their cozy
Speaker 1: business class as you you know, it's like seats getting small,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 3: I could do an hour on that, Katie. I just
Speaker 3: went on four flights last week and it was a healthscape.
Speaker 3: It was a healthscape anyway. But we're here to talk
Speaker 3: about robot falcons, as I.
Speaker 1: Understand it to airlines, am I, I adam, maybe you
Speaker 1: maybe have you seen this? Have you heard about this?
Speaker 1: I find flying on an arrowplane sometimes.
Speaker 2: Uncomfortable and mean, yeah a little bit.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so no, I mean that's it the they
Speaker 1: scared these birds with the robot falcon and the birds, uh,
Speaker 1: these homing pigeons were like, hey, we're scared, but we're
Speaker 1: going to keep her cool and work as a unit
Speaker 1: with you. I'm sharing with you an image of like
Speaker 1: these these robots used in these situations, which just seems
Speaker 1: kind of distoed. It looks like a cyber does kind
Speaker 1: of thing for these animals.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, this is wild.
Speaker 3: These things look insane, like they're completely Orwellian, right, like
Speaker 3: it is right, Yeah, I mean I know that animals
Speaker 3: don't rely on site in the same way that we do,
Speaker 3: or not all of the them do. Yeah, it just
Speaker 3: seems tough to me to draw the kinds of conclusions about, say,
Speaker 3: pigeons from these machines, because these machines are like, what
Speaker 3: would not be scared looking at that thing?
Speaker 1: It's not. But the thing about that study, right is,
Speaker 1: it's not about whether they're.
Speaker 2: Scared, how do they respond to It's about.
Speaker 1: How do they respond to fears. So whether they think
Speaker 1: like it's a falcon chasing us, or this is a
Speaker 1: demon from the depths of pigeon health, right making a
Speaker 1: terrifying noise. We got to get out of here. No,
Speaker 1: I think that that's why for that study, Like I
Speaker 1: actually think that's succeptable. It's relatively strong study. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's like it's looking you know at sort of this,
Speaker 1: uh the behavior of the birds specific and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, they're comparing it to like non
Speaker 1: frightened flocking and.
Speaker 3: That's fine, and look again I'm not a pigeon scientist.
Speaker 3: That's not my area of expertise. But I still feel like,
Speaker 3: what the kind of fear that the pigeons are experiencing
Speaker 3: or type seems like it might have bearing on how
Speaker 3: they respond or maybe I'm entirely cold, yes, you know.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, that's I think that's a that is
Speaker 1: a fair critique of the study because like it could
Speaker 1: be that this is such a novel situation for you
Speaker 1: that if it was an actual right, like if it's
Speaker 1: an actual falcon, they might have like a specific response.
Speaker 1: But given that this is a completely unknown thing, like
Speaker 1: maybe their behavior is different because this is like I
Speaker 1: have never heard or seen this before, and we are
Speaker 1: just doing something to get away from it because they
Speaker 1: because like there is it is true that for a
Speaker 1: lot of animals, like they develop different strategies for predator
Speaker 1: of aasion depending on the predators. Like animals will have
Speaker 1: like specific alarm calls for say like a flying predator
Speaker 1: or own predator or snake or something, And so it's
Speaker 1: possible that their evasion strategies differ depending on the predator,
Speaker 1: and there could be some effect of like, this is
Speaker 1: a robot and that is eliciting a specific response. But
Speaker 1: even if this is like specific to robot fear, it's
Speaker 1: still interesting that they have this that they don't seem
Speaker 1: to like be basically the equivalent of shoving someone aside
Speaker 1: as you try to escape.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, yeah, I mean, you know again, I I
Speaker 3: barb it for me to speak to the mind of pigeons, but.
Speaker 2: These things are horrifying. Yeah, these things are horrifying.
Speaker 3: Also, I don't know why every robot that walks on
Speaker 3: the on the land looks like an animal its head's
Speaker 3: been cut off. That's like a.
Speaker 2: Thing because it doesn't need to hell, it doesn't need
Speaker 2: to know.
Speaker 3: But it just enhances the feeling that we that you
Speaker 3: get as a human of like that thing is is
Speaker 3: uh is unnatural, you know what I mean, It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: Know you're I think you're looking at that like darkness
Speaker 1: at the robot do I mean? I don't. I feel
Speaker 1: like because they've sometimes pitched it in terms of like
Speaker 1: these like security security situations and stuff, I think part
Speaker 1: of the like appeal of it is it's a little
Speaker 1: bit like one of these things like like shows up
Speaker 1: at your door and starts blaring at sirens at you.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I just like immediately fall over out of terror.
Speaker 3: It hurts me to where it wants me to go.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, all right, the door, I'll open it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like if a human officer like comes right and
Speaker 1: it's like I need to search your car, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what you got probable cause? Certain? No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a i'm let's your warrant.
Speaker 1: But still I'm more I'm more likely to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, let's see your warrant. But if one of
Speaker 1: these robot dogs comes up to me and is like,
Speaker 1: realink your car, I'm like, okay, I'm done.
Speaker 3: Yeah you're not the PI in that noir tale when
Speaker 3: that dog shows up.
Speaker 2: Now you know what took you so long? Rogers, I've
Speaker 2: been waiting for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah you don't you don't. You don't have ahead, and
Speaker 1: you move and a way that I do not like.
Speaker 3: So whatever you need you Yeah, those I mean, I've
Speaker 3: enjoyed the the advent of robot dancing videos and stuff
Speaker 3: that have come out in the last few years, but like, well,
Speaker 3: that's the thing.
Speaker 2: They're always menacing because.
Speaker 3: The robots are always designed in a way that removes us,
Speaker 3: like gives you that it puts the uncanny feeling front
Speaker 3: and center.
Speaker 2: I don't know why they insist on doing that, you know.
Speaker 1: Because I don't Yeah, I don't know. It's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I've never seen a real life robot that
Speaker 1: I would describe as not that way, especially like the
Speaker 1: only time there's been a cute robot, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: like actually cute, adorable robot.
Speaker 2: Is Wall, of course, in the toys.
Speaker 1: And that's because that robot.
Speaker 3: No just general like toy robots in generally there's lots
Speaker 3: of cute one.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe there's some some cute ones, but the
Speaker 1: most truly cute one is that one, because that was
Speaker 1: animated by handshake humans sure to make it cute and expressive,
Speaker 1: and so every time Wally makes an adorable expression right there,
Speaker 1: was a human being making sure that that robot looked
Speaker 1: cute and expressive.
Speaker 2: Right, right, So you know it's tough, man.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, you can't really get past the there's a
Speaker 3: certain point where the robot has to kind of stand
Speaker 3: on its own as being appealing, and it just really
Speaker 3: doesn't feel like it works for that for that quality.
Speaker 3: I don't know how important that quality is if this
Speaker 3: thing's working behind the scenes, Like, for instance, if this dog,
Speaker 3: this robot dog that does the sheep hurting doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be watched by human beings, like this becomes an
Speaker 3: automated task where human being now can go do something else.
Speaker 3: That's that's kind of amazing, you know, because I like
Speaker 3: I you know, I imagine the sheep aren't going to their
Speaker 3: sheep therapists or whatever about this thing, right, They're probably fine,
Speaker 3: it's okay, But if you have to sit there and
Speaker 3: watch it, nah, man, give me that dog any old day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I don't know. I I truly don't know
Speaker 1: what to think when it comes to these things. I
Speaker 1: think it's just like any tools, right, like like we're
Speaker 1: talking about with AI, like, it really entirely depends on
Speaker 1: the application. I think that things like farming and are
Speaker 1: kind of clash with animal human civilization and animals. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that are currently wrong with them totally.
Speaker 1: So like if robots could help with that, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if robots somehow could make farming like more humane, I'd
Speaker 1: be all for it. Like I've heard of these things
Speaker 1: that are these like automated milkers where it's like cows
Speaker 1: will get there's just like a robot milker where a
Speaker 1: cow decides like, hey, my utters are feeling kind of
Speaker 1: not great. I'm going to go into this automated milker,
Speaker 1: get milked and then wander off. That's great because then
Speaker 1: you give the cow more autonomy you know you have.
Speaker 1: It makes dairy farming slightly less horrifying. So in that case, yeah,
Speaker 1: team robot. But if robots are used to like increase
Speaker 1: like the sort of inhuman conditions of animals, right, people, then.
Speaker 3: I'm getting maximum milk right, Like, that's the kind of
Speaker 3: thing you're worried about.
Speaker 1: You know, we have found if we smash the cows
Speaker 1: with a hammer, it increases milk production by twenty point
Speaker 1: seven hammer.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, no, no, I don't want that.
Speaker 1: Insulting the cows makes the milk sweeter and more rich
Speaker 1: in protein.
Speaker 2: Have an insulted insult cow lata, it's excellent.
Speaker 1: Because the best milk comes from sad and depressed.
Speaker 2: Well in fact industry secret. Uh yeah.
Speaker 3: I wonder if at some point, when we're used to
Speaker 3: the idea that robots, we're going to encounter robots every day,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, because we're not there yet,
Speaker 3: but like I feel like in our lifetime we will
Speaker 3: be like when we get to that point, are there,
Speaker 3: is there going to be a movement to make them
Speaker 3: feel more like accessible?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely, I think so. I think I think that
Speaker 1: we see this with sort of like all kind of
Speaker 1: product design. It's like really optimized to make us want
Speaker 1: to you know, because like like robots are going to
Speaker 1: become kind of consumers at some point, and so there's
Speaker 1: going maybe the robot that like again is like you know,
Speaker 1: hurting all the robotic cows, and the robotic cows themselves,
Speaker 1: like they're all probably gonna look like garbage. But like
Speaker 1: you know, the robots that are you know, basically there
Speaker 1: that are visible to humans and doing stuff, We're gonna
Speaker 1: try to make him cute as hell so that you
Speaker 1: can tolerate, like are an upset by then? Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: it's hard to get mad at a robot that took
Speaker 1: your job when it looks like Wally and it does
Speaker 1: a little like top half damn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's really good at it. It's like, well, shucks,
Speaker 2: well shucks on that. Uh got Do you want to
Speaker 2: play a little I love a game. Let's do it?
Speaker 1: Play the game gets to Squawk in the Mystery Animal
Speaker 1: Sound game. Every week I play a mystery animal sound
Speaker 1: and you the listener, and you the guests, try to
Speaker 1: guess who was making that sound. It can be any
Speaker 1: animal in the world.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Last week's mystery animal sound hint was this This monk
Speaker 1: is ignoring his vows of celibacy and is on the
Speaker 1: market for some kinky kanky.
Speaker 2: All right, Adam, what.
Speaker 1: Do you think about that?
Speaker 3: This monk is violating his vow of celibacy and it's
Speaker 3: down for some hanky panky.
Speaker 2: That is a mating call.
Speaker 4: Of a uh a, uh, I'm some kind of uh
Speaker 4: catholic named monkey.
Speaker 1: That's that's that is that is close. It's close, but
Speaker 1: it's not a monkey. Uh. It is a capuchin bar
Speaker 1: so uh yes, so you got the you got the like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know our capuchin monk's Catholic.
Speaker 2: This is also the name of a monkey, is it not?
Speaker 1: It is? It is also the name of a monkey,
Speaker 1: but this one is the bird version of that. So
Speaker 1: congratulations to Lara W who said that she's heard one
Speaker 1: of these at the San Diego Zoo, which is a
Speaker 1: great zoo. So capuchin birds have that name because they
Speaker 1: look like capuchin monks. It's actually the same monkeys. The
Speaker 1: little like it's like they look like they have a
Speaker 1: little brown robe, but they have a bald Yeah.
Speaker 4: They do.
Speaker 1: Adam, are you looking at it?
Speaker 2: I'm super looking at one. They are incredible looking.
Speaker 1: They're weird. They're you know, it's interesting because as much
Speaker 1: as I adore vultures and buzzards and like condors, they
Speaker 1: are kind of ugly because bald head. And I gotta
Speaker 1: admit it, but I love them. I love them still,
Speaker 1: these guys, even though they have a bald head. I
Speaker 1: would describe it's super cute. They're really cute because there's
Speaker 1: something about like they've got Yes, they're bald, but they're
Speaker 1: smooth and then they have this enormous cut. It like
Speaker 1: gives me it's like it's like a little it's the
Speaker 1: cuteness of like a little old man wearing an extremely
Speaker 1: fluffy winter coat where you.
Speaker 3: Just you know, north face winter coat. It does look
Speaker 3: like a small bird wrapped up so warm and cozy.
Speaker 3: It really does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bird bird Brito. They're adorable. And
Speaker 1: why do you think it's making this call?
Speaker 2: It's got to be a mating call. I mean, birds
Speaker 2: are the best for mating calls.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was funny too.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is this is a sexy dial up internet
Speaker 1: tone that it is using to try to attract a mate.
Speaker 1: They are found in the Amazon. So the Amazon the
Speaker 1: best place in the world to find the weird, really
Speaker 1: wackiest animals. Such a hot spot of culture, of animal diversity.
Speaker 2: You gotta get it.
Speaker 3: I gotta get out there once in my life, you know,
Speaker 3: I got to get out to the Yeah Amazon, honestly,
Speaker 3: you know, try, you know, see what's out there?
Speaker 2: Give it. Yeah, get out there, get in there, get it.
Speaker 1: What are you doing you're still doing?
Speaker 2: What are you still doing here in that Amazon? Check
Speaker 2: it out? Gotta do it.
Speaker 1: Onto this week. This animal sound the hint is this
Speaker 1: sure sounds fierce, but am sure sounds fierce, but the
Speaker 1: most you have to fear from him with his chomdia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so what.
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 3: That's pretty epic that those events were pretty epic.
Speaker 1: That was just my that was my tummy. It's lunchtime
Speaker 1: for me, almost robot talk dinner, dinner time for me.
Speaker 2: Hm hmm. That's great. I got any guests, oh Am,
Speaker 2: I supposed to guess? Okay, great, Okay.
Speaker 5: Go for it.
Speaker 3: Boy, that's that sounds like sometimes like I'm gonna guess
Speaker 3: it's some kind of bore it like it's the sex
Speaker 3: sounds of something of four.
Speaker 1: That sounds great to me too, But I actually know
Speaker 1: the answer. I'm not gonna tell you. I'm tell next.
Speaker 1: I gotta know you'll you'll have to find out on
Speaker 1: next week's episode of Creature Feature. You think you know
Speaker 1: who is making that? Just wonderful? Beautiful sense suel sound
Speaker 1: sense sual sound right to me at Creature Feature Pod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. You can write to me also
Speaker 1: your questions, pictures of your pet, random bird, you saw
Speaker 1: a bug you found you thought was cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Whatever?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, books are great, Adam, Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me today pleasure, Where can people? Where can
Speaker 1: people find you? And the content that you make with
Speaker 1: your own brain and.
Speaker 3: Not something definitely not AI content because I don't know
Speaker 3: how to use it well enough to get UH.
Speaker 2: You can find all the thousands of podcasts.
Speaker 3: I do on uh a patreon called smallbeans patreon dot com.
Speaker 2: Gosh, small beans. They're our podcasts about video games. One
Speaker 2: op spinship for me.
Speaker 3: On iHeart Lives. Also some others that I do about movies.
Speaker 3: I have a new movie podcast.
Speaker 2: Launching a Magimie fish and thinking April.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure exactly when, but it will be on
Speaker 3: her YouTube channel called lynch Pins about David Lynch.
Speaker 2: It's good. It's a video podcast, so that's.
Speaker 1: Kind and uh isn't It's.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is.
Speaker 3: But you know the advantage of it just being a
Speaker 3: video podcast is you could have it on your YouTube
Speaker 3: at work and not look at me.
Speaker 2: You don't have to look at me, you know. Okay,
Speaker 2: So that's that's an advance you'll see.
Speaker 5: UH.
Speaker 2: So there's that podcast. It's like visual video.
Speaker 3: And lastly, I have a feature film coming out that
Speaker 3: I produced, documentary about the sea showing industry called Santaba.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I believe that will be coming out this year. Keep
Speaker 3: your eyes filled for it. We're really proud of it.
Speaker 2: It's come along long way, looks great. We think we don't.
Speaker 2: We're trying to sell it, and we feel fairly confident
Speaker 2: that I hope we'll see it.
Speaker 3: The sealling is yes of the island of Santaba, which
Speaker 3: is in Florida and was entirely destroyed by HURRICANEUMLIVI.
Speaker 1: About Oh my god, well that's really interesting. Oh listen, seashells.
Speaker 1: They're just the clothes of animals, and we love animals.
Speaker 2: They're just grade close.
Speaker 3: It's just grape clos that's all it is.
Speaker 1: It's just the bones that animals wear on the outside.
Speaker 1: Bones check check show, check out all those things. Highly recommend.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for this lunch visual.
Speaker 2: I like how you've grabbed onto that. I'm so happy.
Speaker 1: I I like David Lynch though you know, I like
Speaker 1: I like stuff he does, but he's very weird, so
Speaker 1: I'm yaiud about that. I also I like I like you,
Speaker 1: and I like Baba by Fish. So what's not what's.
Speaker 3: Not the point of that podcast is if you've ever
Speaker 3: wanted to get into David Lanch this is a good
Speaker 3: entry point for you to like appreciate what he does.
Speaker 2: That's the idea.
Speaker 1: Great, that's fantastic. All right, Well, thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening. If you leave a rating or review,
Speaker 1: I am so grateful. I read all the reviews and
Speaker 1: all the ratings. They truly do help. They make a difference.
Speaker 1: It tells the algorithm that this podcast is valuable. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know that's going to be important when everything is algorithms,
Speaker 1: because it's all robots, just robots talking to robots.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: And thank you to the Space Classics for their super
Speaker 1: awesome song. Ex Aluminum Creature Feature is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio for our podcasts like the one you just heard.
Speaker 1: Visit I Heart Radio app Apple podcast or where you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite job. I don't judge you. I'm
Speaker 1: not your mother. You've gotta live your life to beat
Speaker 1: up your own drum. See you next Wednesday.