Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Recently, I've been doing extensive research into ants (by recently, I mean obsessively combing the internet all night), and came upon the subject of ant intelligence. This brought me to being curious of the intelligence of other animals, and how close some animals might be to reaching human-level intelligence. This can be expressed in several ways, but I like to break it down into these ways in which humans are intelligent - memory, self-awareness, tool manipulation, language (of any sort, from auditory to visual, and everything in between), logic, and mathematics. For some of these to evolve (primarily language, which is the best way for sharing information, and therefore developing skills such as tool manipulation), a strong social structure like that of the wolf pack or human family would be necessary. Many animals have been able to excel in one or several of these areas, however, none have been able to be accomplished in all of them, as humans have. You might see an elephant or a bird being self-conscious, and grooming itself when it sees that smudge of dirt on its skin/feathers in the mirror, or a clan of chimpanzees utilizing crude hunting spears, remembering minute details (insane, but a helluva lotta chimps have significantly better memories than most humans can boast), or even communicating via sign language, while we have ants making logical deductions, using pheromones for sophisticated levels of communication, and even demonstrating remarkable acumen for quantitative measurements, but no species has been able to truly become excellent in more than two or three of these areas.

If humans had some level of motivation to create another sentient species, what would be some of the methods we would use to do so? If we were to deduce methods, however, we would first need to determine what types we would be working with. For this, I would like to talk about the Ape family hominidae (orangutans, Chimps, etc.), aka "greater apes", and ants in general. The reasoning for great apes should be obvious, but I'll explain anyways. They are known to excel at memory games, they can be taught to be quite competent in arithmetic (basic math), form tight-knit social clans, and show much more intelligent behavior. The reasoning for ants being that 1.) They have been farming for more than 50 mil. years by both "shepharding" aphids in order to "milk" them for sugar-rich liquids, and cultivating fungus on leaves for consumption (as well as many other techniques) 2.) they build sophisticated "cities" (colonies) that can be miles deep and wide, and Argentine ants have even known to make expansive "supercolonies" composed of dozens of smaller colonies. One supercolony in Melbourne, Australia was approx. 100 KM wide in 2004 (likely even larger now), while many are now believed to be part of one global "megacolony" composed of colonies in Japan, Southern Europe, and the US (interactions between ants of the subcolonies is incredible). These cities are compartmentalized, with different sections for farming, breeding, caring for larvae, etc. The only other species that has spread like this is humans, and, honestly, these colonies are basically Warhammer 40k-level Hive Worlds. It's insane, I'm honestly starting to believe that ants are already as smart as humans. But enough of that.

So, what are some methods in which we could create more intelligent creatures? What sorts of selective breeding - what phenotypes to look for? If we go about this through genetic engineering, then what sorts of traits/activities would we want to encourage, and which ones should we discourage? Honestly, I don't know if this is the right website for this discussion (it probably isn't), but I've spent hundreds of hours on dakka having intelligent discussions, and this was the first place I thought to go to, since this is practically a science fiction concept, or at least it will be for a few more years.

Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

There was a lim made about this in the 70's, it didnt end well for humans.

There was a short story involving time travel and an attempt to make evolved ants, that didnt end well either.

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

I can confirm this. I conducted two experiments.

In the first, I threw ten people into a pool and stood at the end of a diving board holding a fish and not one of them could figure out how to reach it! They just waded water complaining about 'rights' and 'freedom' and other words that I'm pretty sure are made up.

Intelligent ants would be one of the worst goals to aspire to- ever. I can't kill off a colony the size of a football without 3 types of poison, and repeated dosings for a week, or a big pot of boiling water. Ants are a hive mind- they only care about the hive. They don't even care about themselves. If a scent trail leads them somewhere, they will climb over a pile of corpses to get there.

Such a species is not likely to desire or need to coexist with anything else. At best, we can hope that they start farming us.

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

Note: I doubt it will work.

As for ants, they are amazing creatures but they are nothing like us. They are a hive mind. Each worker is born into a job and does it until death. While I agree ants are the most fascinating creatures on earth as far as i remember reading we still don't understand why ants only take breaks when they need to (instead of mooching off others and resting more) or why worker simply smells the scout scent and goes off to do the job. We know how but why is a bit odd for ants, because there s nobody sitting there co ordinating it all, they simply do what needs to be done. Can this sort of thing fit in with intelligence? Not sure.As for the mega colony there is a type of Ant that has a huge empire, they do this because each colony is not separate but the same. So if a queen dies those workers keep working for the queen nearby. These ants are common in NZ and much of the world. They are the only ants where colonies do not fight each other or have separate queens. They are simply a string of colonies that work together. To me this is crazy and amazing.

I think the following needs to be thought of.

Damaging ecosystems ect when we chose a creature.

The creature has to have intelligence we can measure. Like when we bred dogs using traits we could measure.

The animal would have to have similar traits to us (Can a dog ever be truly intelligent without hands to work with?) Otherwise we are kind of dooming them to be reliant on us or live like animals. Maybe this could be a cool story about a society of dogs given intelligence but lack the body to make any use of it?

Back to the Ants, if we tried to breed intelligence I think it highly likely we will breed obedience. We think a dog is smart when it listens to us well and does tricks on demand etc. I think it might be a potential trap of building smart capable creatures but maybe they get stuck in a loop of obedience? Not sure how to explain my thought here.

I think my main concern is still how do we find a body to match an intelligent brain like ours? It is all well and good giving ants intelligence (provided we can, again very doubtful) but I do wonder how much the body we are in governs our brains and what they can do.

Interesting topic for sure.

Ants though man, amazing creatures. Ants are like civilisations. Wars, slavery, self sacrifice, cities, colonies, empires and nomadic lifestyles, hunters, gatherers and much more. Even termites to a degree, but even then they are nothing like ants.

Making them intellegent will be the worst idea ever though. Source: Earth Defence Force 2017 (seriously google that game, best game ever).

Akragth wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

The creatures you call "mice" are not quite what they appear, is what he's saying.

Akragth wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

It appears you have not read the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. I suggest you take this weekend to start to rectify the unfortunate situation you find yourself in.

 feeder wrote:

Akragth wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

It appears you have not read the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. I suggest you take this weekend to start to rectify the unfortunate situation you find yourself in.

The answer is 42 after all.

 Anpu42 wrote:

 feeder wrote:

Akragth wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

It appears you have not read the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. I suggest you take this weekend to start to rectify the unfortunate situation you find yourself in.

The answer is 42 after all.

Spoilers bro!

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Intelligent ants would be one of the worst goals to aspire to- ever. I can't kill off a colony the size of a football without 3 types of poison, and repeated dosings for a week, or a big pot of boiling water. Ants are a hive mind- they only care about the hive. They don't even care about themselves. If a scent trail leads them somewhere, they will climb over a pile of corpses to get there.

Such a species is not likely to desire or need to coexist with anything else. At best, we can hope that they start farming us.

Argentine Ants have been known to intermingle with other colonies, much as humans would visit another city. This kind of social intermingling is the only time I have ever heard of separate clans interacting without violence in the animal kingdom. They've even been known to peacefully coexist with other species of ant, which is part of why they're so successful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Note: I doubt it will work.

As for ants, they are amazing creatures but they are nothing like us. They are a hive mind. Each worker is born into a job and does it until death. While I agree ants are the most fascinating creatures on earth as far as i remember reading we still don't understand why ants only take breaks when they need to (instead of mooching off others and resting more) or why worker simply smells the scout scent and goes off to do the job. We know how but why is a bit odd for ants, because there s nobody sitting there co ordinating it all, they simply do what needs to be done. Can this sort of thing fit in with intelligence? Not sure.As for the mega colony there is a type of Ant that has a huge empire, they do this because each colony is not separate but the same. So if a queen dies those workers keep working for the queen nearby. These ants are common in NZ and much of the world. They are the only ants where colonies do not fight each other or have separate queens. They are simply a string of colonies that work together. To me this is crazy and amazing.

I think the following needs to be thought of.

Damaging ecosystems ect when we chose a creature.

The creature has to have intelligence we can measure. Like when we bred dogs using traits we could measure.

The animal would have to have similar traits to us (Can a dog ever be truly intelligent without hands to work with?) Otherwise we are kind of dooming them to be reliant on us or live like animals. Maybe this could be a cool story about a society of dogs given intelligence but lack the body to make any use of it?

Back to the Ants, if we tried to breed intelligence I think it highly likely we will breed obedience. We think a dog is smart when it listens to us well and does tricks on demand etc. I think it might be a potential trap of building smart capable creatures but maybe they get stuck in a loop of obedience? Not sure how to explain my thought here.

I think my main concern is still how do we find a body to match an intelligent brain like ours? It is all well and good giving ants intelligence (provided we can, again very doubtful) but I do wonder how much the body we are in governs our brains and what they can do.

Interesting topic for sure.

Ants though man, amazing creatures. Ants are like civilisations. Wars, slavery, self sacrifice, cities, colonies, empires and nomadic lifestyles, hunters, gatherers and much more. Even termites to a degree, but even then they are nothing like ants.

Making them intellegent will be the worst idea ever though. Source: Earth Defence Force 2017 (seriously google that game, best game ever).

The potential ramifications could be both negative and positive. As long as we don't treat them like dumb animals and provide them with something useful, we could quite easily coexist. The species of ant that you're talking about is the Argentine Ant, and it can detect the hydrocarbons in other ants (Basically, most of this species eats the same diet, so they don't kill eachother) to determine friend or foe - it's basically a biological IFF. And, as you said, ants already exhibit many human activities, such as slavery, farming, and war. The only thing that we would really need to measure an ant colony's intelligence would be some form of communication aside from giving them food for doing something. Perhaps by studying the interactions of Argentine Ants from different colonies, we could, possibly, figure out how ants communicate with eachother.

In the "Uplift" books by David Brin, (SF) humans raise chimpanzees and dolphins to intelligence (tool and language using, etc) by various techniques including gene engineering.

When reading the books I wondered why bother to uplift chimpanzees. (Obviously for plot reasons...) They are the creatures genetically most similar to humans, so it would be the easiest to start with, but their capabilities as intelligent beings are also pretty close to humans therefore not very helpful when the process was complete. Basically they are a bit stronger and better at climbing.

Dolphins would take a lot more effort, being unable to walk or manipulate tools without extensive surgery -- in the books they are given nerve impulse controlled exo-skeletons instead of this -- but on the plus side there probably would be lots of ways that intelligent dolphins could cooperate with humans in the exploitation of the seas.

I have thought about uplifting other species such as dogs or horses, but it seems to me that we get along with these species pretty well already, and to uplift them would probably just lead to a lot of arguments and the loss of the current uses we get from these animals.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the "Uplift" books by David Brin, (SF) humans raise chimpanzees and dolphins to intelligence (tool and language using, etc) by various techniques including gene engineering.

When reading the books I wondered why bother to uplift chimpanzees. (Obviously for plot reasons...) They are the creatures genetically most similar to humans, so it would be the easiest to start with, but their capabilities as intelligent beings are also pretty close to humans therefore not very helpful when the process was complete. Basically they are a bit stronger and better at climbing.

Dolphins would take a lot more effort, being unable to walk or manipulate tools without extensive surgery -- in the books they are given nerve impulse controlled exo-skeletons instead of this -- but on the plus side there probably would be lots of ways that intelligent dolphins could cooperate with humans in the exploitation of the seas.

I have thought about uplifting other species such as dogs or horses, but it seems to me that we get along with these species pretty well already, and to uplift them would probably just lead to a lot of arguments and the loss of the current uses we get from these animals.

Yes, it would make the most sense to uplift a species with capabilities that our own lacks. Something like intelligent turtles, dolphins, ants, etc. would be very valuable.

 feeder wrote:

Akragth wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

It appears you have not read the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. I suggest you take this weekend to start to rectify the unfortunate situation you find yourself in.

Keep your expectations low.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 feeder wrote:

Akragth wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

It appears you have not read the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. I suggest you take this weekend to start to rectify the unfortunate situation you find yourself in.

Keep your expectations low.

The movie was ok, but BBC and Radio versions were great.
The books are the best.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 feeder wrote:

Akragth wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Well, humans are already only the third most intelligent creatures on Earth. Dolphins and little white mice are already ahead of us.

Haha, what?

It appears you have not read the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. I suggest you take this weekend to start to rectify the unfortunate situation you find yourself in.

Keep your expectations low.

If this is a meta joke, riffing on the HHGTTG series, then I bow to your superior knowledge sir.

If you are passing comment on the quality of the books, then.... you find yourself in the very small minority.

Maybe. However, everyone I know, including me, who first read the books over the age of 20, pretty much found them overrated. I don't believe they hold up well for anyone who has already delved into the genre and/or humor for years before discovering this book. Like Lord of the Rings, I find that people who read HHGTtG as an intoductary experience tend to remember it much more fondly.

I think what the OK means is a Sapient Species.

There are already Sentient Species (capable of Cognition) in the thousands.

Also... Raccoons stand the best chance of actually adapting to Sapience.

They are one of the only animals with an actual usable opposable thumb, and basic Cognitive Architecture.

Give them a few more hundred though sand years of regular evolution and just that opposable thumb will give them an advantage over primates are cetaceans.

Of course, primates have the exact opposite evolutionary situation.

They have the required cognitive architecture, but lack the anatomical architecture (Their thumbs are too far back on their hands, leaving them unable to form a power-grip, which the raccoon can already form).

And, both are going to need to outperform silicon based lifeforms (computers).

MB

BeAfraid wrote:
I think what the OK means is a Sapient Species.

There are already Sentient Species (capable of Cognition) in the thousands.

Also... Raccoons stand the best chance of actually adapting to Sapience.

They are one of the only animals with an actual usable opposable thumb, and basic Cognitive Architecture.

Give them a few more hundred though sand years of regular evolution and just that opposable thumb will give them an advantage over primates are cetaceans.

Of course, primates have the exact opposite evolutionary situation.

They have the required cognitive architecture, but lack the anatomical architecture (Their thumbs are too far back on their hands, leaving them unable to form a power-grip, which the raccoon can already form).

And, both are going to need to outperform silicon based lifeforms (computers).

MB

The Raccoons in our aria will step into the street to get you to stop while the Coyotes steal your Hub Caps.

Must be some cross-breeding going on if the Coyotes are able to steal hub-caps.

Most Coyotes I know will steal your dog or cat (to eat it), but haven't the thumbs to operate a tire-wrench.

MB

Uplifting animals is inhumane, terminally stupid, or both.

Chimpanzees might be the least stupid of non-human animals, but that does not mean they are nice. Remember Travis the chimpanzee, pet and animal actor? Remember how he tore a woman's hands and face off?

I do not look at a murderously territorial species with superhuman strength that is literally known for eating babies and see something that should be made smarter or be allowed anywhere near human society.

Adult chimpanzees are murderous and violent. They form clans and make war on each other. Exactly the qualities we'd want in a SECOND sentient species on this world, right?

 KingCracker wrote:


Spoilers bro!

Nah, the answer is quite meaningless without the question.

 Breotan wrote:
Adult chimpanzees are murderous and violent. They form clans and make war on each other. Exactly the qualities we'd want in a SECOND sentient species on this world, right?

I don't know about you, but I think monkey's dual wielding LMG's from horseback is a totally awesome way to die

I think dogs would probably be the easiest, we're already very adept at breeding dogs, and they're already well adapted to us. Some breeds like border collies have already been bred with a preference for intelligence, and they are noticeably brighter than other dogs (at least in my experience).

Though I imagine the next sentient "species" will most likely be some form of AI. We probably already have the hardware, so it might just be a few decades now before the software starts to catch up.

I would welcome planet of the apes. Calvary apes with machines guns and tanks ftw.

 LordofHats wrote:


I can confirm this. I conducted two experiments.

In the first, I threw ten people into a pool and stood at the end of a diving board holding a fish and not one of them could figure out how to reach it! They just waded water complaining about 'rights' and 'freedom' and other words that I'm pretty sure are made up.

They weren't made up as you had clearly just performed a 'freedom throw' several times and were subsequently offering them the 'right' to a fish. Ungrateful, the lot of them.

I seem to see a lot of tool based bias in this thread. Does bees using water to help cool down a hive (by putting it on a fanning bees back( count as tool use of a non-opposable thumb kind?
Tools are used to measure as a measure of intelligence as they are supremely important in our development of intelligence, does this stand true for all species? I am not sure, as it seems we are taking our species one significant advantage and holding it up as 'this is intelligence'.

Also, jackdaws have been seen to learn how to use a piece of bread to go fishing, and various types of monkeys have learned to use various tools or techniques to get food. However these are not evidence of planning, and could have developed by accident. The achievements of apes and jackdaws are really very limited.

If we include in the category of tools, things such as music, language especially written, and mathematics, it begins to seem as if everything we think of as evidence of intelligence is a tool.

What could be "intelligence" that isn't part of the generally understood definition? How would it be useful to humans?

Wouldn't instinct be a pretty big barrier to uplifting another species?

I vaguely remember something about our lack of instinct leading to greater learning ability, on the flipside of greater periods of infant vulnerability.

Which would be why a baby goat takes much less time to walk than a baby human, but are under-represented in the STEM fields.