The contribution why there would probably be no AI without pigeons first appeared at the online magazine Basic Thinking. You can start the day well every morning via our newsletter update.
What do pigeons have to do with artificial intelligence? Modern AI systems use the principles of learning that are more reminiscent of the simple reward principle of a pigeon than human logic. A look at why these birds of all people inspired the AI revolution.
A pigeon as a weapon? What sounds like a bad science fiction film was part of a secret government rejekt in the United States in the 1940s. The psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner initiated the bizarre -looking “Project Pigeon” at the time, in which instigence was trained to head into a specific goal.
The idea may have failed, but the principles behind it are currently more important than ever. Because the so-called “increase in reinforcement” of the pigeon is in the world’s most progressive AI systems. In the 1960s, Skinner’s behavioral theories in psychology were dismissed as too simple.
Nevertheless, computer scientists picked them up and made them the foundation for many of today’s AI tools of tech giants such as Google and Openaai. The “Reinforcement Learning”, as it says today, is not a replica of the complex human brain, but a strongly charged version of the simple associative processes of a pigeon.
A lesson for AI research: human intelligence is not a good model for machine learning. Instead, it is the primitive principles of learning theory that can drive algorithms today and surpass human skills.
Tauben and AI: From food to the algorithm
Learning to reinforce is a simple process of experiment and error. If a pigeon picks a button and gets a food grain, this is a positive reinforcement for you. She will repeat this action. The system learns through reward which actions lead to a desired result.
Modern KIs are based on this principle. You will get a task to win a chess game or control a car and will be rewarded for every correct action. Meanwhile, errors are punished. With countless repetitions, the algorithms learn to carry out a sequence of actions that leads to maximum reward in the long term.
Research shows that it does not require complex thinking processes, but only a huge computing power that can repeat the simple learning processes countless times. This knowledge has massively accelerated the development of AI and enables computers to solve complex mathematical problems today, defeat chess size or have cars drive autonomously.
Is artificial intelligence a pigeon brain on steroids?
As simple and successful as this method is, it has an important implication: if the fear becomes true that Ki will one day win the upper hand, it will not be human. Instead, future computer dictators could be more like pigeons with brains the size of a planet.
The pigeon brain helps to demystify a technology that fears or cheered many. Paradoxically, the success story of the AI also has an impact on biology. Some researchers see proof that the natural intelligence of complex animals such as chimpanzees or crows is much more based on this simple associative learning than previously assumed.
What was once regarded as a simple explanation for the behavior of animals is now considered from a different perspective. The pigeon in the laboratory is therefore not only in our computers, but also in our own heads and the engine behind some of the most impressive human performance.
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As a Tech Industry expert, I can see how pigeons have played a significant role in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Pigeons have been used in various experiments and studies that have helped researchers understand concepts such as memory, learning, and decision-making, all of which are crucial components of AI.
For example, the work of psychologist B.F. Skinner with pigeons in the early 20th century laid the foundation for operant conditioning, a key concept in AI that involves reinforcing desired behaviors. Additionally, research on pigeon navigation has provided insights into how animals use spatial reasoning and memory to navigate their environments, which has influenced the development of AI algorithms for robotics and autonomous systems.
Furthermore, pigeons have been used as models for studying visual processing and pattern recognition, which are essential for computer vision technologies in AI. By studying how pigeons process visual information and make decisions based on that information, researchers have been able to improve the effectiveness of AI systems for tasks such as image recognition and object detection.
Overall, pigeons have provided valuable insights and inspiration for researchers in the field of AI, and it is likely that the development of AI would not have progressed as far as it has without the contributions of these seemingly ordinary birds.
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