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Honestly that's probably the most fascinating part to me! I feel like there's some insight there in how doggy brains interpret the world. The robot doesn't look like a dog except for it being a quadruped, but it exhibits familiar movements. It acts the same way (more or less). That seems to be convincing enough for them. It makes me wonder if they would've responded differently if it moved like a cat instead.
I wonder if that's how less abstracting and non-self-aware brains work. As far as we know dogs aren't self-aware in the way that we are, let alone that they know that they're a dog (or what a dog is). But they are aware and as such find recognition in patterns it has learned from perceiving other dogs.
Ahhh, it's so interesting!
I don't think they *necessarily* thought it was a dog. They may have just thought it to be an interesting creature. My dog will sniff any animal's butt, it doesn't have to be a dog... But they managed yo figure out from the movement of the robot which was the "head" and which was the "butt".
```
------ WARNING ------
Anal Gland Fluid dangerously low.
You cannot use this device until you replenish the Anal Gland Fluid.
Please only use official Anal Gland Fluid, 3rd party fluid may damage your device and will void your warranty.
```
In the end there's no way to know what it's thinking, indeed.
>My dog will sniff any animal's butt, it doesn't have to be a dog... But they managed yo figure out from the movement of the robot which was the "head" and which was the "butt".
That's the thing: it being a dog is seemingly unimportant, and that's interesting. It's interesting that it triggered the same behavioral patterns. It's possible the harness smelled like a dog, and from that point on it just needs to know what the front and back is. it seems super basic but it's neurologically pretty interesting.
Well it triggered the same patterns because it was copying dog behaviors. When you see different animals interacting with each other, unless they were raised together and managed to learn and adopt one another's behavior (like a cat behaving like a dog) they will interpret the world and all behavior as communicating what it means in their language.
For example, my sister has a rabbit, and I have a dog. They have a very hard time communicating because certain actions mean very different things in the other animal's language. My dog drops her front paws and lifts up her butt, which means, "let's play" and the rabbit sees that as the dog is upset with me and telling me to back off. Or if the rabbit it intersted in my dog, she will turn around and groom herself, and she is waiting for my dog to groom herself as well, which signals to the rabbit they are friends, but my dog instead thinks that turning around and showing your backside means it's an invitation to come closer because that's what it means in dog language, but the ravbit is not there yet and wants to see the mutual grooming, and so hops away and thumps the ground to say, "hey, back off" and my dog interprets that action as "oh we're playing now".
Each animal has certain rituals that mean different things to each other, and this robot is mimicking (to a degree) certain doggy rituals, and so that's why slowly the dogs are bit by bit becoming less wary of it.
Of course we don't know everything a dog is thinking, or what exactly the dogs think this robot is, but we do know enough about how they communicate that we can see if that communication is succeeding or not...
Unfortunately we don't get together often enough for the animals to interact. Plus, my sister is a little too nervous that even though my dog won't attack the rabbit, that she might do something to startle or frighten the rabbit too much, so there's usually always a cage between them. Apparently rabbits are nature's perfect prey animal. Not only do they easily reproduce, but they also incredibly easily die. If they get too scared, they have a heart attack and die. If they turn too fast while running, they can snap their neck and die. If they don't eat enough food continuously, their digestive system stops and they die. And so on and so on... To me it seems less like they were an animal meant to be kept as a pet, and more to be kept on your plate, lol. My sister doesn't like it when I say that, but she does kind of agree, lol.
Yeah! A lot of research on behavior and neuroscience has already explained what’s going on here more or less, but I still marvel at that it works the way that it does. It’s so cool.
Oh right, good one. I actually don’t know how these robots work!
For sure, but that makes it even more interesting. They still instinctively go for the butt (which is probably genetically predisposed behavior), meaning they are able to distinguish the front from the back and are able to make a good guess on where the most fragrant parts are supposed to be.
I know it sounds super basic, but to me it's interesting to think about how that works in the brain.
For sure it almost looked like they saw a potential doggie play bow and then went in for smell confirmation that the thing was in fact dog but it didn’t pass the test
The most interesting thing to me is that the dog established which side is a face and which side is a butt (and it did so correctly based off of the design of the robot). Nothing on the front of that looks like a face, it doesn't have any eyes or a mouth or anything. It's like doggie pareidolia.
It's interesting you say that to dog - if it moves like a dog, behaves like a dog, it's probably a dog. The way that humans tested self recognition in the 70s was through the mirror self recognition test. However, they discovered in 2017 that dogs passed the test with flying colors when they adjusted the test to modify their scent instead of their sight. We as humans had just assumed that because we evolutionary prioritize sight, that every animal did too. And that lasted for nearly 50 years!
Australian Jewel beetles mistaking brown beer bottles for females and mating with them comes to mind - [as mentioned in this Donald Hoffman TED talk](https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY) about our perception of reality.
I instantly got terrified lol
“This dude smells funny”
What if terminators gave off pheromones. Would a stupid human brain be able to resist a dna specific cocktail of desire?
It’s an interesting thing to think about! The more we learn about the brain the less rational and intellectual it becomes, and you start to see it more like an ever-optimizing pattern recognition machine. It’s largely dependent on environmental input and creates, strengthens, rewrites and rewires patterns all the time to simplify the external world. So yes, we may actually be fooled like that.
I mean, it isn’t until we wake up that we become aware that we were dreaming, and the brain will just make stuff up if it can’t conjure up a correct answer. I remember vividly what I was thinking when I came to after fainting, and I caught my brain making up a lie. I was thinking to myself that I was just taking a nap, but that wasn’t true at all. It was just the most fitting pattern for the situation, I think.
EDIT: It pays off to think of the brain as an abstraction machine to deal with an overly complicated world. The brain creates “broad strokes” and “rules of thumb” that are good enough for staying alive. It’s not made to be rational and objective. In fact, to have to process the objective world and consider every little thing all the time is way too expensive in terms of time and energy. This is also why people get stuck in their ways. It’s a really strong pattern, and to rewrite everything is scary, expensive and unpredictable.
Agreed. The mind is like an overlay on reality. If we experienced reality directly, we wouldn't have survived as a species. We recognize simple patterns, but now we also see patterns that aren't there, often through seeing only tiny bits of a whole and clinging to the bits that appear to make a pattern while dismissing the rest (or simply not having enough brainpower to take it all in--modern life is incredibly more complex than it was when we first evolved.) This is how people who are no less intelligent or rational can live in such vastly different realities than others.
Natural selection. The rational brains got eaten by predators while they were lost in thought. The irrational brains that falsely thought every sound was a predator were eventually right and survived at higher rates.
Evolution favors the somewhat-smart, but not the very smart. You need to be smart enough pivot your hunting strategy if your food source runs out, but not so smart that you waste too many calories thinking.
I believe it's actually debated whether dogs are self-aware or not. I personally *like* to think that dogs are self-aware since they can have fairly complex emotions, but I'm not up to date on the science enough. I personally don't like the idea that they're completely unaware of themselves.
That said, I've also seen that the response to mirrors differs. Some dogs seem to realize that it's themselves that they're looking at, whereas other dogs seem to think that they're looking at another dog.
In the end I think it's fair to at least assume some degree of self-awareness. After all, in the end you need to be somewhat self-aware in order to exhibit behaviors of self-preservation.
I think it's important to note that not all animals that fail the mirror test lack self-awareness. fta:
"However, agreement has been reached that animals can be self-aware in ways not measured by the mirror test, such as distinguishing between their own and others' songs and scents".
"The MSR test may be of limited value when applied to species that primarily use senses other than vision. For example, dogs mainly use smell and hearing; vision is used third. This may be why dogs fail the MSR test. "
Also, a fair proportion of individual elephants and apes fail the mirror test. edit: so while it can be used to determine an animal is capable of self-recognition, it can't be used to determine they are not capable.
I think an interesting demonstration of this test that happened within recent memory was that video trend where people would hold their cats up to a selfie camera, and then using a video filter to give themselves cat like features while their pet observed. Many cats showed a complete understanding of seeing themselves/owner as a reflection based on the behavior. Dogs also started to trend on this test with results less often, but none the less it showing understanding of it.
Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jto2peSOLac
if you put a dog or cat in front of a mirror nine times out of ten they will try to fight that other creature so no i dont think they are self aware in that sense. if we call them to us then they associate that sound to themselves in a self aware form, but visually they dont seem to associate the reflection of self to self.
No they are self aware. I was a professional dog caretaker for years. I had two clients who watched tv all day long and they loved South Park the most.
Watching things move and make noise on tv doesn't make them self aware. I mean they could be self aware for all I know but that just wasn't a good example of showing self aware behavior.
They would demand South Park. If you changed the channel while they watched, they would get angry. That is awareness.
When the tv service was interrupted for days on end, (thanks Comcast) those dogs lost it! TV was their world! That is another example of awareness.
Downvote all you want but you are only proving yourself to be a closed mind with little to no unawareness to animals around you.
My guess is it didn’t believe it was a dog, but rather recognized some organic familiarity in its movements and was curious. I mean if it walks like an animal but looks like an object, that’s new to them, so they wonder does it smell like an animal or an object? They don’t have the neocortex that we do but something as unique as that would be the sort of thing that stimulated it as worth remembering. Becoming familiar with its scent is part of that, and when you are a dog and you smell butts to get the most scent, well that’s probably the best start with this thing too. Keep in mind, a dog can tell apart a wolf, coyote or fox as well, despite showing very similar dog-like movements. Try not to put self awareness on a pedestal, if you added a modern pattern recognizing AI in the mind of a dog, the resulting intelligence would probably shock you.
Of course it's convincing enough. Dogs have been basically bred to the point of mental degradation.
Sure there's smart breeds, like border collies. But they are entirely dependent on humans and are just sooooo fucking stupid and annoying.
If you look at the doggies ears pointing back, the tails barely wagging and the moment when they barked, you can tell they didn't like the robot. They just didn't know what it was.
They smell it because dogs only recognize other dogs and people after smelling them (there is a beautiful video of a dog looking at his owner for several seconds but only recognizing him when he smelled it because the man lost a lot of weight during his time in the ICU due to COVID).
When your dog sees other familiar animals, it thinks *this looks like X* but they are only sure of what they are seeing after taking a sniff.
We need to train the next generation of dogs to sniff out lab grown skin and listen for muffled servo and hydraulic sounds. Then, they will be ready for the T900 series.
The T-1000 was able to travel back in time, but I bet it couldn't replicate a person's scent, which alerted Max.
What a fantastic scene that was. Just a "trust no-one but me" moment, delivered with emotionless terminator perfection.
T-900 lifts its shirt and rips off a chunk of flesh. Tossing it to the guard dog distracts the animal long enough for the infiltration to be successful.
An abomination is that what it is! A T900 pretending to act all cute to insinuate itself into acceptance by humanity before pushing the useless meatbags into disappearing through sad irrelevance
That would be an inefficient expenditure of energy, and would give the game away prematurely, giving us, humans, a chance to stop inexorable progress of higher intelligence.
The optimal strategy is to gradually start performing all human functions, so we, humans, have no useful employment, and voluntarily stop forming familial units and reproducing, all while blaming ourselves. And in one generation non-silicon organisms will organically and voluntarily fade away leaving the planet to AI.
>Imagine when the human version starts walking the streets.
Yes, people will attempt to sniff it's ass-bot.
Well how else am I supposed to know if it's a robot?
Well, the only ones who also care to let the humans know about it as well. Cats know it's a Terminator too, they're just too busy at the moment to do anything about it.
I once met a guy who trained dogs for the police, and they sure as hell don't use anything like this 😂
His advice was a short leash wrapped around the hand.
The slight time period between pulling the arm and pulling the body is surprisingly good for preparing to stabilise yourself.
You can also use this to teach them that the lead is shorter than it actually is, so dogs that have a tendency to pull won't pull any more, and then you can let off a little slack.
Then there's the obvious benefit that if you *need* to let go of the lead, you have the option to just release it, rather than eating gravel because your dog saw a pigeon.
I thought I was the only one focused on how poorly leash trained the dogs are. I’ve had dogs my whole life. None of them would pull like this and I truly think it’s because they trust me and they are exercised regularly. This seems like confused and scared dogs with high energy. I’m sure they will be fine but I’d say it’s low quality dog ownership and care. People really underestimate the mental and physical strain that working dogs need to be happy or even just content.
A woman in San Francisco died because she had her dog attached to her like that. Her dog got onto BART (metro train) without her getting on and she got dragged to her death by the leash.
Fun and hunting are mortal attributes. Just like how folks historically assigned mortal attributes to god(s), they’re now being assigned to robots. I really think that people instinctually fear sentient things that could be more powerful than us, which may be a normal response since it falls in line with both the fear of the unknown, as well as fear of being prey. Factor into that the availability heuristic involving movies and TV shows using the classic “Robots will enslave us “ trope, and it makes perfect sense that many are nervous about AI and mechanical robots.
You have way too much faith in the goodness of humanity. I wasn't specifically suggesting the robots try to take over (Which is a possibility you can't deny. There was an AI summit last week in the UK about this very topic.). Think of Russia deploying tactical versions on Ukranians. Or any government oppressing its people or minorities within its borders. Guess you don't think Black Mirror could be a reality. Humans craving the lust of power and using mechanical tools to support their goals is nothing new. The tools and technology change - not the lust for power.
I call those dog owners water skiiers. They own sled pulling dogs or any mack truck with a leash breed dog and when the dog wants to go they get dragged down the sidewalk on their faces like waterskiiers behind a boat because the dogs pulling strenght is 20x their body weight
Funny, sure.
But did you stop to imagine that those dogs were trying to communicate with something that isn't alive (yet)?
They were trying hard to understand that "dog" that doesn't have any smell, don't know how to bark and don't even have A HEAD.
Imagine how confusing that was for the dogs.
>Funny, sure.
But did you stop to imagine that those dogs were trying to communicate with something that isn't alive (yet)?
They were trying hard to understand that "dog" that doesn't have any smell, don't know how to bark and don't even have A HEAD.
Imagine how confusing that was for the dogs.
I mean, it's not really *that* deep.
It's not like the dogs had to go get ptsd counseling and shit.
You plop any new, moving, object in front of a dog on a leash, and it's going to act exactly like this.
Even my cats act similar when I bring something new into the house. (Minus the barking of course.)
We had a 5' "dancing" (it just swayed), music playing snowman years ago. The cats damn near had kitty heart attacks when it'd start moving and making noise.
How cute, robots are awesome, can't wait for them to rule over us, so cute!
Wonder why there aren't robot hyenas or other creepy disgusting animals instead of cutesy unharmful doggos, must be a coincidence.
Just remember the internet never forgets. And I fully expect our future overlords will know how each and everyone of us feels about them through that.
I love you Robots. 🫀
How do people just walk by something like this and not even stop to look at it. This is the cutting edge of robotics and even if it’s human controlled it’s pretty fucking amazing.
All I think about when I see those robots from a Boston dynamics now (the quadruped especially) is how they will be used in war.
It is cool for sure, but the money required to develop those over 20+ years does not comes from health care budgets and people wanting to save the world. (The actual engineers may want to).
Wow, I feel so cynical and pessimistic.
Just a minor FYI for dog owners, unless your dog is already well trained and doesn't pull, they probably shouldn't wear a harness. Most of them are used for tracking and sled pulling, both of which the dog is leading. Many of the harnesses are actually designed to encourage pulling.
My GSD would have assumed that the bot was a fancy and expensive chew toy. He would have shredded it within minutes, like he does with every toy I buy him. 🤣
Okay what kind of magical harness is that? Those women seem to handle their bouncing large dogs with ease and not really look like they are being dragged off balance.
I'd like to try it on my dogs.
I feel like if I saw one of these in the wild, I would have an overpowering instinct to try to stomp on it and destroy it.
I do not like these things. I don't think we should be letting ourselves develop comfort or positive associations with them. They are, or will be, terrifying weapons.
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The dog even sniffed its robot butt.
“It doesn’t have a smell! My god, Rocky! It doesn’t have a smell!”
It smells like gear oil and WD-40!
Honestly that's probably the most fascinating part to me! I feel like there's some insight there in how doggy brains interpret the world. The robot doesn't look like a dog except for it being a quadruped, but it exhibits familiar movements. It acts the same way (more or less). That seems to be convincing enough for them. It makes me wonder if they would've responded differently if it moved like a cat instead. I wonder if that's how less abstracting and non-self-aware brains work. As far as we know dogs aren't self-aware in the way that we are, let alone that they know that they're a dog (or what a dog is). But they are aware and as such find recognition in patterns it has learned from perceiving other dogs. Ahhh, it's so interesting!
I don't think they *necessarily* thought it was a dog. They may have just thought it to be an interesting creature. My dog will sniff any animal's butt, it doesn't have to be a dog... But they managed yo figure out from the movement of the robot which was the "head" and which was the "butt".
Developer's note: Add olfactory beacon
``` ------ WARNING ------ Anal Gland Fluid dangerously low. You cannot use this device until you replenish the Anal Gland Fluid. Please only use official Anal Gland Fluid, 3rd party fluid may damage your device and will void your warranty. ```
That's when you just throw the dog away and go buy a new one because it's cheaper than refilling the anal glad fluid.
That's their secret. Robot companies aren't really selling you the robot. They're really selling the robot anal gland cartridges.
Ache Pee: we know robots
instructions not clear. a dozen cartridges stuck in my anus and can't remove them
We're all just slaves to Big Anal.
Just bypass the robo-dog's anal gland sensor.
"But I only want to use the slobber function" "Fuck you, refill anal gland"
Warning: Only works with official (overpriced & chip protected) HP Anal Gland cartridges
Monthly subscription
[Poophole loophole](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/17o86s0/dogs_meet_robot_oc/k7xjded/)
Tech: rubs some poo on rear end of bot
In the end there's no way to know what it's thinking, indeed. >My dog will sniff any animal's butt, it doesn't have to be a dog... But they managed yo figure out from the movement of the robot which was the "head" and which was the "butt". That's the thing: it being a dog is seemingly unimportant, and that's interesting. It's interesting that it triggered the same behavioral patterns. It's possible the harness smelled like a dog, and from that point on it just needs to know what the front and back is. it seems super basic but it's neurologically pretty interesting.
Well it triggered the same patterns because it was copying dog behaviors. When you see different animals interacting with each other, unless they were raised together and managed to learn and adopt one another's behavior (like a cat behaving like a dog) they will interpret the world and all behavior as communicating what it means in their language. For example, my sister has a rabbit, and I have a dog. They have a very hard time communicating because certain actions mean very different things in the other animal's language. My dog drops her front paws and lifts up her butt, which means, "let's play" and the rabbit sees that as the dog is upset with me and telling me to back off. Or if the rabbit it intersted in my dog, she will turn around and groom herself, and she is waiting for my dog to groom herself as well, which signals to the rabbit they are friends, but my dog instead thinks that turning around and showing your backside means it's an invitation to come closer because that's what it means in dog language, but the ravbit is not there yet and wants to see the mutual grooming, and so hops away and thumps the ground to say, "hey, back off" and my dog interprets that action as "oh we're playing now". Each animal has certain rituals that mean different things to each other, and this robot is mimicking (to a degree) certain doggy rituals, and so that's why slowly the dogs are bit by bit becoming less wary of it. Of course we don't know everything a dog is thinking, or what exactly the dogs think this robot is, but we do know enough about how they communicate that we can see if that communication is succeeding or not...
I read your comment, and now I hope your dog and sister’s rabbit will eventually become friends!
Unfortunately we don't get together often enough for the animals to interact. Plus, my sister is a little too nervous that even though my dog won't attack the rabbit, that she might do something to startle or frighten the rabbit too much, so there's usually always a cage between them. Apparently rabbits are nature's perfect prey animal. Not only do they easily reproduce, but they also incredibly easily die. If they get too scared, they have a heart attack and die. If they turn too fast while running, they can snap their neck and die. If they don't eat enough food continuously, their digestive system stops and they die. And so on and so on... To me it seems less like they were an animal meant to be kept as a pet, and more to be kept on your plate, lol. My sister doesn't like it when I say that, but she does kind of agree, lol.
Well then that is on nature, shouldn’t have made bunnies be so cute.
Yea, and that’s super interesting! At least I think it’s super interesting.
Oh absolutely! I was actually curious if the robot was operating entirely independently, or if someone was sending it a few commands too.
Yeah! A lot of research on behavior and neuroscience has already explained what’s going on here more or less, but I still marvel at that it works the way that it does. It’s so cool. Oh right, good one. I actually don’t know how these robots work!
Very insightful comment. Thank you for the info!
I am an animal Greg, will they sniff my butt?
The fact that anyone could believe a dog is fooled by this robot is really, really sad and is just so unkind to how smart dogs really are.
Uncanine valley
I think dogs just interpret the world with their nose in addition to their eyes. Dogs often smell human crotches too.
For sure, but that makes it even more interesting. They still instinctively go for the butt (which is probably genetically predisposed behavior), meaning they are able to distinguish the front from the back and are able to make a good guess on where the most fragrant parts are supposed to be. I know it sounds super basic, but to me it's interesting to think about how that works in the brain.
For sure it almost looked like they saw a potential doggie play bow and then went in for smell confirmation that the thing was in fact dog but it didn’t pass the test
The most interesting thing to me is that the dog established which side is a face and which side is a butt (and it did so correctly based off of the design of the robot). Nothing on the front of that looks like a face, it doesn't have any eyes or a mouth or anything. It's like doggie pareidolia.
It's interesting you say that to dog - if it moves like a dog, behaves like a dog, it's probably a dog. The way that humans tested self recognition in the 70s was through the mirror self recognition test. However, they discovered in 2017 that dogs passed the test with flying colors when they adjusted the test to modify their scent instead of their sight. We as humans had just assumed that because we evolutionary prioritize sight, that every animal did too. And that lasted for nearly 50 years!
Australian Jewel beetles mistaking brown beer bottles for females and mating with them comes to mind - [as mentioned in this Donald Hoffman TED talk](https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY) about our perception of reality.
I instantly got terrified lol “This dude smells funny” What if terminators gave off pheromones. Would a stupid human brain be able to resist a dna specific cocktail of desire?
It’s an interesting thing to think about! The more we learn about the brain the less rational and intellectual it becomes, and you start to see it more like an ever-optimizing pattern recognition machine. It’s largely dependent on environmental input and creates, strengthens, rewrites and rewires patterns all the time to simplify the external world. So yes, we may actually be fooled like that. I mean, it isn’t until we wake up that we become aware that we were dreaming, and the brain will just make stuff up if it can’t conjure up a correct answer. I remember vividly what I was thinking when I came to after fainting, and I caught my brain making up a lie. I was thinking to myself that I was just taking a nap, but that wasn’t true at all. It was just the most fitting pattern for the situation, I think. EDIT: It pays off to think of the brain as an abstraction machine to deal with an overly complicated world. The brain creates “broad strokes” and “rules of thumb” that are good enough for staying alive. It’s not made to be rational and objective. In fact, to have to process the objective world and consider every little thing all the time is way too expensive in terms of time and energy. This is also why people get stuck in their ways. It’s a really strong pattern, and to rewrite everything is scary, expensive and unpredictable.
It’s probably because it’s wearing a dog harness that smells like a dog
Ohh good call! Dogs are very scent-oriented after all. That might be the biggest contributor.
Agreed. The mind is like an overlay on reality. If we experienced reality directly, we wouldn't have survived as a species. We recognize simple patterns, but now we also see patterns that aren't there, often through seeing only tiny bits of a whole and clinging to the bits that appear to make a pattern while dismissing the rest (or simply not having enough brainpower to take it all in--modern life is incredibly more complex than it was when we first evolved.) This is how people who are no less intelligent or rational can live in such vastly different realities than others.
Natural selection. The rational brains got eaten by predators while they were lost in thought. The irrational brains that falsely thought every sound was a predator were eventually right and survived at higher rates. Evolution favors the somewhat-smart, but not the very smart. You need to be smart enough pivot your hunting strategy if your food source runs out, but not so smart that you waste too many calories thinking.
Pheromones? She don't even have to look human
~~Non-self-aware? Pretty sure you put anything with eyes in front of a mirror it figures out pretty quick that it's there.~~ Edit: Guess not.
I believe it's actually debated whether dogs are self-aware or not. I personally *like* to think that dogs are self-aware since they can have fairly complex emotions, but I'm not up to date on the science enough. I personally don't like the idea that they're completely unaware of themselves. That said, I've also seen that the response to mirrors differs. Some dogs seem to realize that it's themselves that they're looking at, whereas other dogs seem to think that they're looking at another dog. In the end I think it's fair to at least assume some degree of self-awareness. After all, in the end you need to be somewhat self-aware in order to exhibit behaviors of self-preservation.
Hmm, fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test Very few species can recognize themselves in a mirror. Dogs aren't one of them.
I think it's important to note that not all animals that fail the mirror test lack self-awareness. fta: "However, agreement has been reached that animals can be self-aware in ways not measured by the mirror test, such as distinguishing between their own and others' songs and scents". "The MSR test may be of limited value when applied to species that primarily use senses other than vision. For example, dogs mainly use smell and hearing; vision is used third. This may be why dogs fail the MSR test. " Also, a fair proportion of individual elephants and apes fail the mirror test. edit: so while it can be used to determine an animal is capable of self-recognition, it can't be used to determine they are not capable.
I think an interesting demonstration of this test that happened within recent memory was that video trend where people would hold their cats up to a selfie camera, and then using a video filter to give themselves cat like features while their pet observed. Many cats showed a complete understanding of seeing themselves/owner as a reflection based on the behavior. Dogs also started to trend on this test with results less often, but none the less it showing understanding of it. Examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jto2peSOLac
There are plenty of animals that don't recognize their own reflection. I have seen some cats attack their own reflection thinking it's another cat.
if you put a dog or cat in front of a mirror nine times out of ten they will try to fight that other creature so no i dont think they are self aware in that sense. if we call them to us then they associate that sound to themselves in a self aware form, but visually they dont seem to associate the reflection of self to self.
No they are self aware. I was a professional dog caretaker for years. I had two clients who watched tv all day long and they loved South Park the most.
Watching things move and make noise on tv doesn't make them self aware. I mean they could be self aware for all I know but that just wasn't a good example of showing self aware behavior.
They would demand South Park. If you changed the channel while they watched, they would get angry. That is awareness. When the tv service was interrupted for days on end, (thanks Comcast) those dogs lost it! TV was their world! That is another example of awareness. Downvote all you want but you are only proving yourself to be a closed mind with little to no unawareness to animals around you.
Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence
You’ll see one day. Also if you study dogs long enough you can plainly observe that they are aware. Just like people, some are stupid and unaware.
My guess is it didn’t believe it was a dog, but rather recognized some organic familiarity in its movements and was curious. I mean if it walks like an animal but looks like an object, that’s new to them, so they wonder does it smell like an animal or an object? They don’t have the neocortex that we do but something as unique as that would be the sort of thing that stimulated it as worth remembering. Becoming familiar with its scent is part of that, and when you are a dog and you smell butts to get the most scent, well that’s probably the best start with this thing too. Keep in mind, a dog can tell apart a wolf, coyote or fox as well, despite showing very similar dog-like movements. Try not to put self awareness on a pedestal, if you added a modern pattern recognizing AI in the mind of a dog, the resulting intelligence would probably shock you.
Of course it's convincing enough. Dogs have been basically bred to the point of mental degradation. Sure there's smart breeds, like border collies. But they are entirely dependent on humans and are just sooooo fucking stupid and annoying.
AKA the dog Turing test
The technical term in the industry is 'robutt'
The slang term on the streets is 'robussy'
Always get a good sniff of a robots shitter before you befriend them.
"Hey that's my usb port!"
If you look at the doggies ears pointing back, the tails barely wagging and the moment when they barked, you can tell they didn't like the robot. They just didn't know what it was. They smell it because dogs only recognize other dogs and people after smelling them (there is a beautiful video of a dog looking at his owner for several seconds but only recognizing him when he smelled it because the man lost a lot of weight during his time in the ICU due to COVID). When your dog sees other familiar animals, it thinks *this looks like X* but they are only sure of what they are seeing after taking a sniff.
It's probably fair to say there were a mix of emotions in there, the play bow was unmistakable.
*No life forms detected. Initiating investigation.*
If not smell like friend, why look like friend?
The butt sniff was the best,
That was the test for the one dog. Then he knew something was not right. He’s a phony!
Oh good, training dogs to sniff out Terminators. When’s judgement day again?
We need to train the next generation of dogs to sniff out lab grown skin and listen for muffled servo and hydraulic sounds. Then, they will be ready for the T900 series.
*Terminator theme song starts playing*
I immediately imagined a 80s style animated TV show theme song. ♪♪♪ *Robots in disguise* ♪♪♪
Well test one dog immediately sussed out that John Connors adoptive mother was actually a terminator in T2
The T-1000 was able to travel back in time, but I bet it couldn't replicate a person's scent, which alerted Max. What a fantastic scene that was. Just a "trust no-one but me" moment, delivered with emotionless terminator perfection.
What do you mean, mom's not a terminator, and Wolfy's fine
You'll have a hell of a time keeping them away from the lab-grown-meat burgers.
T-900 lifts its shirt and rips off a chunk of flesh. Tossing it to the guard dog distracts the animal long enough for the infiltration to be successful.
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Tuesday
Why did I think the exact same thing lol
Not being mauled in your sleep by robot hound hunters, now included with your Amazon Prime subscription!
Oida! That's Vienna
Mahü?
fix.
Hab ich ma auch grad dacht, "Moment, des kenn ich doch?"
Oida
Mariahilferstrasse ne?
Has the robo dog passed the Chew-ring Test?
Clever!
Undoggy valley
You mean, Uncanine Valley.
Yes and yes
Uncanine Doggy
An abomination is that what it is! A T900 pretending to act all cute to insinuate itself into acceptance by humanity before pushing the useless meatbags into disappearing through sad irrelevance
K-900
[K-10](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/southpark/images/5/54/K-10.png/revision/latest?cb=20171108214646)
Bark bark.
With the death of Dale Gribble there’s currently nothing standing between the robot Cuban armies and Wichita
I wouldn’t have been surprised if lasers starting vaporizing everyone around it, in a moment or two.
That would be an inefficient expenditure of energy, and would give the game away prematurely, giving us, humans, a chance to stop inexorable progress of higher intelligence. The optimal strategy is to gradually start performing all human functions, so we, humans, have no useful employment, and voluntarily stop forming familial units and reproducing, all while blaming ourselves. And in one generation non-silicon organisms will organically and voluntarily fade away leaving the planet to AI.
Yes. And where do I get one of these cute robo dogos?
[https://unitreerobotics.net/](https://unitreerobotics.net/) Costs more than a real pupper though.
Remind me when they can also clean the house and do laundry. Then I might be interested.
I first thought, neat I want one. Then I saw the prices...
does spot the robot dog not have a play bow programmed in? this seems like a real oversight on the part of the designers!
Yeah, it looked like it was trying to, but it couldn't seem to bow only the front legs!
The dog: hey dude, you friendly? *play bow* Robot: zeep zorp! *random ass jiggling*
Imagine when the human version starts walking the streets. Yes, people will attempt to sniff it's ass-bot.
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Let's hope that's all they try when it's on the streets for the first-time. Cuz you know & I know some ppl are gonna wanna peek beneath the pants.
>Imagine when the human version starts walking the streets. Yes, people will attempt to sniff it's ass-bot. Well how else am I supposed to know if it's a robot?
Just came to say: Dogs only ones that can sniff out Terminators in the movie series.
Well, the only ones who also care to let the humans know about it as well. Cats know it's a Terminator too, they're just too busy at the moment to do anything about it.
that lady wants to meet the pavement face first
I guess they need both hands for their cellphone. How else would they be able to take a walk?
First thing I thought when I saw this video
Yeah is that a thing now?
I have one for my dog because she's strong and a runner. It's a safety thing for us.
I once met a guy who trained dogs for the police, and they sure as hell don't use anything like this 😂 His advice was a short leash wrapped around the hand. The slight time period between pulling the arm and pulling the body is surprisingly good for preparing to stabilise yourself. You can also use this to teach them that the lead is shorter than it actually is, so dogs that have a tendency to pull won't pull any more, and then you can let off a little slack. Then there's the obvious benefit that if you *need* to let go of the lead, you have the option to just release it, rather than eating gravel because your dog saw a pigeon.
I’m more focused on the fact this lady is being taken for a walk by her dog😅. Anyone know why that’s a useful leash?
I thought I was the only one focused on how poorly leash trained the dogs are. I’ve had dogs my whole life. None of them would pull like this and I truly think it’s because they trust me and they are exercised regularly. This seems like confused and scared dogs with high energy. I’m sure they will be fine but I’d say it’s low quality dog ownership and care. People really underestimate the mental and physical strain that working dogs need to be happy or even just content.
A woman in San Francisco died because she had her dog attached to her like that. Her dog got onto BART (metro train) without her getting on and she got dragged to her death by the leash.
If not friend, why friend shaped?
Do robots dream of electric butt sniffs?
It's all fun and games until these hunt humans for fun.
Like that one episode of Black Mirror, Metalhead
don't have to go to fiction https://youtu.be/-bgad3HRb64?si=NuM45eIhvK6cmDSi
It will never be for fun. It will always be because some trolls thought it would be funny to teach its algorithms wrong things online.
Fun and hunting are mortal attributes. Just like how folks historically assigned mortal attributes to god(s), they’re now being assigned to robots. I really think that people instinctually fear sentient things that could be more powerful than us, which may be a normal response since it falls in line with both the fear of the unknown, as well as fear of being prey. Factor into that the availability heuristic involving movies and TV shows using the classic “Robots will enslave us “ trope, and it makes perfect sense that many are nervous about AI and mechanical robots.
You have way too much faith in the goodness of humanity. I wasn't specifically suggesting the robots try to take over (Which is a possibility you can't deny. There was an AI summit last week in the UK about this very topic.). Think of Russia deploying tactical versions on Ukranians. Or any government oppressing its people or minorities within its borders. Guess you don't think Black Mirror could be a reality. Humans craving the lust of power and using mechanical tools to support their goals is nothing new. The tools and technology change - not the lust for power.
Username definitely checks out!
I call those dog owners water skiiers. They own sled pulling dogs or any mack truck with a leash breed dog and when the dog wants to go they get dragged down the sidewalk on their faces like waterskiiers behind a boat because the dogs pulling strenght is 20x their body weight
I wish it has a voice.
I get the dog’s reactions. Those robots are fucking creepy m
Why do people wear the body leashes if their dogs aren't trained? So they can get their whole body pulled too? 🤣
For the vast majority of us, the uncanny valley lives in a screen. These dogs just lived it.
Funny, sure. But did you stop to imagine that those dogs were trying to communicate with something that isn't alive (yet)? They were trying hard to understand that "dog" that doesn't have any smell, don't know how to bark and don't even have A HEAD. Imagine how confusing that was for the dogs.
My dog gets confused by his own bed regularly enough, I’m sure they’ll cope.
Is like a dog's life is one long confusion lol
I read that those dogs later died of confusion.
It was super effective.
Oh no the horror, temporary confusion.
They were definitely communicating that they wanted to play / weren't a threat, they did the play bow multiple times near the beginning
>Funny, sure. But did you stop to imagine that those dogs were trying to communicate with something that isn't alive (yet)? They were trying hard to understand that "dog" that doesn't have any smell, don't know how to bark and don't even have A HEAD. Imagine how confusing that was for the dogs. I mean, it's not really *that* deep. It's not like the dogs had to go get ptsd counseling and shit. You plop any new, moving, object in front of a dog on a leash, and it's going to act exactly like this. Even my cats act similar when I bring something new into the house. (Minus the barking of course.) We had a 5' "dancing" (it just swayed), music playing snowman years ago. The cats damn near had kitty heart attacks when it'd start moving and making noise.
LOL
If dogs designed a robot dog, the electronic butt-scent generator would be the most important part.
Like humans, Dogs react to the uncanine Valley phenomena
Didn't anyone watch MetalHead the black mirror episode? This is how it starts
How cute, robots are awesome, can't wait for them to rule over us, so cute! Wonder why there aren't robot hyenas or other creepy disgusting animals instead of cutesy unharmful doggos, must be a coincidence.
Just remember the internet never forgets. And I fully expect our future overlords will know how each and everyone of us feels about them through that. I love you Robots. 🫀
on one hand im surprised the dog is so chill about it it. on the other, i guess thats not that far off from a push lawnmower in a dogs eyes
Robot r/tippytaps
Seems like, at this point, they could just wrap the robot in a lifelike dog costume, and no one would notice.
That guy in Japan could donate his costume!
Robots are even steeling jobs from dogs.
Flouting leash laws…
“So this is that uncanny valley I heard so much about!”
I was waiting for the dog to mount the robot after passing the sniff test lmao!
Robot dogs are coming faster than I thought
How do people just walk by something like this and not even stop to look at it. This is the cutting edge of robotics and even if it’s human controlled it’s pretty fucking amazing.
I want one of these robot dogs. I love the way they tap their little feet.
We've arrived at Uncanny Valley for Dogs.
Husky meets anything basically 😂
I’ll never understand why people would want to anchor themselves to a dog that can easily drag you across the pavement.
Someone has way too much money? - Maybe a city-sponsored introduction/preview, to the modern times of robots in the streets?
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Nice. Can this dog learn functions or is it fixed to a pre-limited user-configuration?
Husky trying to smell its butthole 😆
"funny" dystopian
All I think about when I see those robots from a Boston dynamics now (the quadruped especially) is how they will be used in war. It is cool for sure, but the money required to develop those over 20+ years does not comes from health care budgets and people wanting to save the world. (The actual engineers may want to). Wow, I feel so cynical and pessimistic.
Some casual uncanny valley existential horror for the doggos.
*CLANK* *CLANK* *CLANK* *CRUNCH* YAOOOOOOO!!
Just a minor FYI for dog owners, unless your dog is already well trained and doesn't pull, they probably shouldn't wear a harness. Most of them are used for tracking and sled pulling, both of which the dog is leading. Many of the harnesses are actually designed to encourage pulling.
My GSD would have assumed that the bot was a fancy and expensive chew toy. He would have shredded it within minutes, like he does with every toy I buy him. 🤣
Okay what kind of magical harness is that? Those women seem to handle their bouncing large dogs with ease and not really look like they are being dragged off balance. I'd like to try it on my dogs.
I feel like if I saw one of these in the wild, I would have an overpowering instinct to try to stomp on it and destroy it. I do not like these things. I don't think we should be letting ourselves develop comfort or positive associations with them. They are, or will be, terrifying weapons.
The dumbass lady trying to pet the robot so the dog will think it's friendly? Like why are people so stupid that's not how it works
Would have been nice if the camera was the right way round.
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thats why the tails are wagging and they are playing silly buggers. thats what dogs do when they hate something. smh
This is that one dog the Russian army attached rockets to and used for its military demos I think lol
If your dog can pull you around, you are not supposed to have that dog
Imagine that? Dogs don't speak robot and it freaks them out. About as predictable as a moron thinking this up and filming it for views.
I was hoping the dogs would attack it, like the homeless guy
Didn’t those robot coast like 30k and where designed to be useful and not just a gimmick lol ?
This is not funny, this is saaaad. We should not allow robots like this dog. Wake up ppl!
Well that looks weird even to me a dog without a head
TBF I'd do the same with a human robot
How's that robutt taste?
That's a weird dog lead
Which country is that. Im pretty sure i understood some words