I want to point to elephants. Not only because it is easy, since they are well endowed with volume, but because they are very intelligent animals that do not hunt, do not make war, and are compulsory herbivores.
When we think of failure modes of creating emulations based on the human brain, we are worried that humans are evil sometimes. Part of our evil, and the kind of evil we have, would hardly be exerted by elephants.
My general point is that it seems that part of the fragility of emulating us comes from our carnivore, hunter, warrior lifestyle, and strategies to ameliorate that might take in consideration intelligent animals that don’t hunt, such as elephants, and some whales.
“Very intelligent” is a relative term. Elephants aren’t very intelligent compared to humans, even though they’re very intelligent compared to the whole animal kingdom.
I somewhat disagree. In terms of neuron counts, the elephant brain is larger, although admittedly most of that is in the elephant’s much larger cerebellum—presumably as a brute force solution to the unique control complexity of the trunk appendage.
The elephant’s cortex (which seems key to human style general intelligence) is roughly 1⁄3 of our neuron count (I’m guessing from memory) - comparable to that of the chimp. There is some recent evidence that elephants may have sophisticated low frequency communication. They even have weird death ‘burial’ rituals. They can solve complex puzzles in captivity. There are even a few cases of elephants learning to speak some simple human words with their trunks.
So in short, elephants seem to have just about as much general intelligence as you’d expect given their cortical neuron count. The upper range of the elephant’s raw brain capability probably comes close to the lower range of human capability.
The large apparent gap in actual adult intelligence is due to the enormous nonlinear amplification effects of human culture and education.
Elephants kill hundreds, if not thousands, of human beings per year. Considering there are no more than 30,000 elephants alive, that’s an amazing feat of evilness. I believe the average elephant kills orders of magnitudes more than the average human, and probably kill more violently as well.
I want to point to elephants. Not only because it is easy, since they are well endowed with volume, but because they are very intelligent animals that do not hunt, do not make war, and are compulsory herbivores. When we think of failure modes of creating emulations based on the human brain, we are worried that humans are evil sometimes. Part of our evil, and the kind of evil we have, would hardly be exerted by elephants. My general point is that it seems that part of the fragility of emulating us comes from our carnivore, hunter, warrior lifestyle, and strategies to ameliorate that might take in consideration intelligent animals that don’t hunt, such as elephants, and some whales.
“Very intelligent” is a relative term. Elephants aren’t very intelligent compared to humans, even though they’re very intelligent compared to the whole animal kingdom.
I somewhat disagree. In terms of neuron counts, the elephant brain is larger, although admittedly most of that is in the elephant’s much larger cerebellum—presumably as a brute force solution to the unique control complexity of the trunk appendage.
The elephant’s cortex (which seems key to human style general intelligence) is roughly 1⁄3 of our neuron count (I’m guessing from memory) - comparable to that of the chimp. There is some recent evidence that elephants may have sophisticated low frequency communication. They even have weird death ‘burial’ rituals. They can solve complex puzzles in captivity. There are even a few cases of elephants learning to speak some simple human words with their trunks.
So in short, elephants seem to have just about as much general intelligence as you’d expect given their cortical neuron count. The upper range of the elephant’s raw brain capability probably comes close to the lower range of human capability.
The large apparent gap in actual adult intelligence is due to the enormous nonlinear amplification effects of human culture and education.
Elephants kill hundreds, if not thousands, of human beings per year. Considering there are no more than 30,000 elephants alive, that’s an amazing feat of evilness. I believe the average elephant kills orders of magnitudes more than the average human, and probably kill more violently as well.