Kanzi the Super-Intelligent Chimp

[Guy Berger]

I thought this was pretty amazing. This chimp is obviously intelligent enough to participate in the politics forum.

Once it was understood that Kanzi needed no specific training to grasp the meaning of spoken words, or their written symbols, reward based training was completely abandoned. As additional symbols were added to his keyboard, they were used in conversation with Kanzi but he was not trained to associate them with specific objects. Instead, all symbols were employed in conversations with Kanzi, and every attempt was made to aide Kanzi in understanding the conversations. Sometimes this entailed accompanying words and lexigrams with gestures, with pictures, with video tape and, of course, with behavioral activities that made manifest the intentions which underlay the communications. Most such conversations centered around travel, finding food and playing. Kanzi's vocabulary steadily increased. Today it is well over 200 words productively and 500 words receptively...

In addition to single words, Kanzi has demonstrated unequivocal understanding of thousands of novel spoken sentences with syntactically complex structures including embedded phrases, pronouns, case markers, and absent referents. His comprehension of spoken language is at least equivalent to that of a 2-1/2 year old child...

Kanzi's achievements are not limited to language, but include tool use and tool manufacturing as well. Kanzi is the first ape who can be said to have mastered truly the art of flaking or "knapping" stone. Kanzi began by hitting rocks together without regard for edge, stone structure or type. He used his brute strength, which is considerable, to produce small stone flakes, which he used to cut a string. With time, however, he began to recognize the characteristics of the stone, its shape and the importance of taking these factors into account while knapping. Consequently, strength was replaced by reflection and Kanzi has become an expert at the production of good flint cutting tools. He has not yet learned to modify his cutting tools if they dull, nor to produce tools that correspond to a pattern such as the hand axes produced by early humans, but he has demonstrated that stone tool manufacture is clearly within the competency of living apes...

That's one smart monkey.

Guy

[Free For All]

What's the matter, Guy? Had enough of Intellectual Property and decide to move on to Intelligent Primates?

[bertrand]

This chimp is clearly overqualified to run a Jazz record label.

Bertrand.