Bees Can Use Tools To Solve Problems, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Bumblebees can use tools to solve a problem, according to experiments that demonstrate their remarkably advanced cognitive abilities. The bees were given an adapted version of an experiment that, 100 years ago, first demonstrated chimpanzees could work out how to retrieve an out-of-reach banana by stacking boxes. Since then, various other primates, elephants and crows have joined an elite cohort of species known to be capable of this level of insight and spontaneous problem solving. In the latest research, bees were shown to be able to roll a polystyrene ball to a specific location and climb on to it in order to access an artificial flower on a low ceiling. The findings challenge the longstanding assumption that insects operate purely on instinct and mindless trial-and-error learning. "Most people think insects are reflex-based machines," said Dr Olli Loukola, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Oulu, Finland, and senior author. "That they can't have any emotional states or feel pain. Some people don't even realize that they have brains. I hope that these results change the worldview about that."
"We are not claiming that bees think like humans," added Loukola. "But our findings show that miniature brains can generate flexible solutions to novel problems in ways we are only beginning to understand."
The findings are published in the journal Science.
"We are not claiming that bees think like humans," added Loukola. "But our findings show that miniature brains can generate flexible solutions to novel problems in ways we are only beginning to understand."
The findings are published in the journal Science.
F-ing duh (Score:2, Insightful)
"Mindless trial-and-error learning" is just about the stupidest thing I've heard anybody say all year.
And I read the news.
We are not claiming that bees think like humans
Good, I wouldn't accuse you of that, either.
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"Mindless trial-and-error learning" is just about the stupidest thing I've heard anybody say all year.
And I read the news.
Not entirely stupid. I've seen that solution used by many game players when the obvious puzzle solution doesn't work. Clicking on every object on the screen, dropping every item in your inventory, dragging every movable item around the environment -- these are attempts to find a solution that the game designer thought was obvious, or was meant to be a "challenge" with an out-of-the-box solution. Curse you, Scott Adams!
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"Mindless trial-and-error learning" is just about the stupidest thing I've heard anybody say all year.
And I read the news.
Not entirely stupid. I've seen that solution used by many game players when the obvious puzzle solution doesn't work. Clicking on every object on the screen, dropping every item in your inventory, dragging every movable item around the environment -- these are attempts to find a solution that the game designer thought was obvious, or was meant to be a "challenge" with an out-of-the-box solution. Curse you, Scott Adams!
The DDoS method of problem solving, doesn’t exactly demonstrate some kind of intelligent capability.
It more demonstrates just how fucking lazy people can become at problem solving, with “skill” that amounts to using a grenade to pick a lock.
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The DDoS method of problems solving is the only way to beat multiple PaC adventure games without a walkthough.
Re:F-ing duh (Score:4, Insightful)
It may be that the users have already learned, through trial and error, that game designers are more likely to include poorly-considered gimmicks as "puzzles" instead of real puzzles. And that even when they try to create real puzzles, they suck at it.
If bees can really use tools... (Score:5, Funny)
They should learn to wield tiny swords to fend off those Asian Murder Hornets.
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I mean, bees attack small hive beetles by building prisons of propolis around them [wikipedia.org], that's something :)
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Tool making (which would be required) is one step above tool using. Note that most humans can use tools, but only a relative small group can really make tools. Also note that this is about Bumblebees, not honey-bees.
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I've never met a human who couldn't make a tool. Not a complex tool, but just a tool. Complex tools are a lot more difficult, but anyone who can adapt a towel to a flyswatter can make a tool.
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That is because you do not understand the question. "Tool making" is about being able to design a tool, not about making one you have seen before or doing minor adaptions. I guess you are not a tool-maker.
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Bees not beer (Score:2)
I swear I read the headline as
Beer can tools to solve problems
Movie elevator pitch (Score:2)
I'm not convinced (Score:4, Insightful)
There are experiments that have shown insects to not modify their behaviour in certain situations when any mammal would lose patience and try a better way. That is probably the reason why "people" "assume" that insects are "reflex-based machines."
Of course it is also known that bees can learn. They learn of the locations of sources of nectar, for example, and communicate that to their hive through dance. But it has also been shown that individual bees retain that information only for half an hour. The hive can retain it for much longer.
That's not trial-and-error learning.
I don't think anybody questions that insects have emotions. Emotions are hormones. Insects have those. Plants do, too.
And insects have pain receptors, so they are able to feel pain, but the effect is not the same as in mammals. (Or in plants, for that matter.)
Brains are central organs. Insects have nerve nodules that serve the same purpose, but they are not as centralised. In that sense, insects do not have brains, but they have something similar that might as well be called a brain. (And there are fungi that are specialised in manipulating those, physically, to elicit specific behaviour in ants, which works only because their "brain" structure is not as flexible as actual brains.)
That bees can move obstacles and climb on things does not in itself prove that they plan those solutions through abstract thinking.
So this seems like another paper that has been published for the readers to have a good laugh.
Even if it were evidence of abstract thinking, that has no implications for emotions or pain.
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It is a myth that individual bees only retain information for half an hour. Depending on the memory at hand, bee memories can last days, weeks, or even the remainder of their foraging life. They have to remember things, because the timeframes a hive operates on are much longer than half an hour, including night time and being kept inside by inclement weather for days or even weeks at at time. Individual bees also learn much more than can be conveyed through waggle dances, such as what colours and shapes o
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Drones are specifically the male bees. Most bees are not drones.
And of course they all act individually, how else would individual bees act.
The behaviour of the hive is different from the behaviour of the individuals: Individual bees are communicative, hives are not.
And an individual bee has limited memory. They even forget which hive they are from after a while if they don't return to it.
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It's IMHO amazingly impressive how dense information can be stored within neural networks. Even a comparably tiny LLM can store more information than the human brain, despite the brain's theoretical storage being far higher due to its vast number of connections (ANNs are better at information density, we're better at learning from limited datasets). The tiny LLM will crush humans at a quiz in virtually anything except said human's particular areas of expertise. Storing information as a superposition of s
I for one... (Score:3)
BI (Score:2)
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First AI now BI, whatever next ?
CI
It's too early... (Score:2)