Yosef Prat

Scientist, zoologist, studying animal behavior and cognition.

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

Animals Have No Language, and Humans Are Animals Too
https://t.co/wuqJXzRVk7

[Nicolas Mathevon @nicolasmathevon.bsky.social @MathevonNicolas]

Do animals have languages? 😉Let's explore the fascinating world of animal acoustic communication.
@InstUnivFr @Univ_St_Etienne @UCB_MillerInst @NatGeoUS @NatGeo @acad_euro @AnimBehSociety

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

Nice example of 'multi-material tool creation'.

Though there's no need to be so careful with speculating about vocal 'voluntary control' and 'forward planning'. Unless there is some convincing evidence against their existence.

[Stuart K Watson @ChimpsAhoi]

📢Our paper is out today in Scientific Reports! 🥳

In this case study, I report on observations of a captive male chimpanzee spontaneously combining two materials (hay and a feeding tub) into a 'drum' ('tub-stack') to use in pant-hoot displays.

See 🧵

https://t.co/0gL9P8N0nD

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

@OdedRechavi This is because hard materials are easier to grasp than soft ones

[sofia forss @ForssSofia]

Who doesn’t want to work with wild hyenas!!! great PhD position opportunity 👇🏼

[Ben Kawam @KawamBen]

Very much enjoyed "Models Are Stupid, and We Need More of Them"

https://t.co/IVJAbiCjsb

[Niels Dingemanse @DingemanseLab]

🚨Job Advert 🚨 Please retweet 😀😃
Research Associate Position (Akademische Ratsstelle auf Zeit) in the Behavioral Ecology group @LMU_Muenchen.

Fixed term (postdoc level) position, for 3 (+3) years

Application deadline: 01.12.2022

1/11

[UtterlyInteresting @UtterlyInterest]

If tea spread to your country by sea you call it tea, if it spread by land you call it chai. This is because the ports of Fujian and Taiwan use the coastal pronunciation "te", whereas Mandarin uses "chá"

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

The circle of life:
A female crab #spider (Thomisus onustus?) munching a honey bee.
One of the ‘Jackal’ flies (Milichiidae sp.) who joined the meal was caught by the tiny male spider (on top of the female).

[Holderied's BASElab @BASElabBristol]

Amazing first results from our new 3D tomograph - an echo image of a Comet moth (A. mittrei) @BristolBioSci

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

‘Language’, in any form, encompasses only a fraction of our knowledge. There is a limit to what we can learn from (only) all the text in the world.

[Tal Linzen @tallinzen]

Just to make sure this point doesn't get lost: the success of instruction-finetuning highlights the *limitation* of the self-supervised language modeling objective.

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

That’s not completely accurate.
We’ve learned something about where enormous computing power can take us (sometimes further than we thought).

Whether the current use is a waste of resources is a different question

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

What cognitive capacities do AI systems have?

Anyway, replace ‘mouse’ with ‘human’, if it makes things easier. The answer would be quite the same.

(the difference between those two 🧠 vanishes in respect to the diff between them and any AI)

[David Chalmers @davidchalmers42]

what cognitive capacities does a mouse have that no current AI system has?

(extra points for intelligence-related capacities with associated behavioral tests. the AI system can have a virtual/robot body if necessary. capacities like eating that require a bio-body don't count.)

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

@GDezecache Many examples of vocal learners come from inter-species imitation.
Some imitated humans (eg parrots, seals, elephants…). and some humans imitated back…

[Mark Bee @UMNFroglab]

Hey colleagues...please help us spread the news about this open position for an assistant professor: we are hiring in Ecology, Evolution, or Behavior...or any integrative combination thereof!

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

“Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?” might be a valid scientific question.
But the 'null hypothesis' of distinction between humans and apes is scientifically illogical.

[Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone]

Dennett (https://t.co/DJviiJyMw3), replying to Premack & Woodruff (https://t.co/Ux3YlcLOXx) in @BBSJournal

[University of Arizona EEB @UofAEEB]

We are excited to announce a search for an assistant professor in any area of ecology! Come join us in beautiful Tucson! Apply here: https://t.co/YM3owxQLCM

[Dr. Limor Raviv 🦄🤗🐘🦒 @Limor_Raviv]

Finally out!! #Complexity and #simplicity in the communication systems of animals and humans - check out our new paper! @cedricboeckx
@l_peckre https://t.co/8enLx77i4y

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

@twitemp1 Yes. But the Q is who’s the supervisor? who provides ‘ground truth’? It might be, occasionally, some ‘reward system’ (and we may wish to model it as well, or at least acknowledge it).
Still, most acquired knowledge is not rewarded/reinforced, isn’t it?

[Yosef Prat @PratYosef]

Not sure about ‘self-supervision’ as brain model. imho, most learning in the brain is unsupervised (eg associative).
Supervision might appear in, eg, reward. But for computational models it is usually external (not self), even if innate and shaped by natural selection.

[[email protected] @tomstafford]

TETRIS FOR SCIENCE!

We need YOU to play TWO games of Tetris for a study by @dagmaradamcova and myself on skilled performance

LINK:
https://t.co/fLaYtI9qtQ

Please RT