Clever Rats and Disappearing Goggles
Revisiting some recent interesting stories
Not long ago, I mentioned a story about doctors using Apple's Augmented Reality Vision Pro goggles while doing surgery1. The idea was that they could have the information they needed right in front of their eyeballs without having to turn around and ask someone to show them the imaging or whatever. It sounded like a great use of cutting-edge technology. Didn't it?
I should have known that just by saying something nice about it, I was putting a curse on it. All things I like are doomed! Yes, you can even blame me for the fact that Firefly only went one season2 Sorry! I don't mean to do that. It just happens.
And, like clockwork, today I ran across an article saying that Apple is "winding down" production of the Vision Pro. Apparently sales aren't good enough to justify the continued expense.
You'd think that a trillion dollar company could afford to take the long view on something like that3 but maybe tech company CEOs, who are kind of used to being rich and having the world hang on their every word, don't think the same way I do. Okay, definitely they don't think the way I do. If they did, they wouldn't be tech company CEOs, would they?
But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, isn't a complete idiot. I expect (hope!) the tech behind the Vision Pro won't just be left to die. I'll bet he has people right this second thinking about what to do with it next. What are the best uses for it? What improvements does it need? Is it just a marketing problem or what?
Apple has already made one huge improvement over the old Google Glass. People using Vis - I'm just going to start abbreviating it. My typing isn't good enough to type the same thing over and over without making mistakes - People using VP are much less likely to get punched in the face than people using Google Glass were.
The young people here might not remember that one of the features Google Glass had was that it could take pictures of anything in front of it. In front of a pair of glasses. Got it? Anything or anyone you were looking at, in other words. Some people decided that that was an invasion of their privacy. For a while, wearing anything that looked like those glasses could get you in trouble.
Between these two uses of similar but decidedly different tech, we have an important tech lesson. Let me see if I can figure out what it is. How about this: "Not every idea is going to work. And some of them are actually going to get you in trouble4."
And part two of that lesson is even more important than part 1: "That doesn't mean you're not on to something interesting and maybe even amazing."
And while we're at it, part 3: "It might take time to figure out how best to use something new."
I could go into a lecture about the craziness of today's ways of doing business but we see that all around us. Instead, let's switch gears completely and talk about animals having fun. Specifically about research around animals having fun. A while back, we talked about a paper that made the claim that elephants have names. I mean, not like, "Jumbo" or, "Ears." They name each other, or possibly themselves, in ways other elephants understand. Now we have an odd little paper about elephants using a hose.
The paper, Water-hose tool use and showering behavior by Asian elephants, describes different things Asian elephants at a zoo5. Now, my first reaction was that it shouldn't be too hard for an elephant to figure out how to use an item that, from their point of view, seems like just a spare trunk. And it has an infinite water supply without anyone drowning. Nice!
They used them to take showers but one elephant also learned how to stop and start the flow of water by kinking the hose or stepping on it. The people studying the elephants couldn't tell if this elephant was intentionally messing with the other elephant's showers or what. Personally, I don't think the "or what" matters. In every instance of using the hose, the elephants were a) Making use of tools and b) Having fun.
There's an old belief that the more intelligent a creature is, the more it needs to play. If you believe that, then it seems elephants are pretty smart, doesn’t it?
In a similar line, we have an article by a neuroscientist about teaching rats to drive. I’m a neuroscientist who taught rats to drive - their joy suggests how anticipating fun can enrich human life. He spent considerable time teaching the rats how to control the little cars he made for them. And the rats loved it. In fact, two out of three rats given a choice between driving to a treat6 or walking for it, drove anyway. It was more complicated and took a little longer but it was more fun, too.
I doubt the rats are as smart as elephants, though. But it would be fun to try to teach them to use tiny hoses little just to see what happened. Hey! We could teach them to wash their own cars! Wouldn’t that be fun?
Don't forget to buy my new book of fantasy short stories for Christmas. Available in a browser near you!
From the author of the Mauser and Keeg Adventures, Tree of Bones and Shadow of a Dream comes All Our Magic Dark and Strange, a collection of fantasy short stories all set in the same dark and strange world.
Here's that prompt: "A whimsical and surreal scene of playful rats spraying water from colorful hoses, creating a lively, fun atmosphere. Around them, elephants are humorously driving small, vintage cars with joyful expressions. The setting is a sunny park with green grass, flowers, and trees, adding a vibrant and cheerful vibe to the artwork. The art style is imaginative and cartoonish, highlighting the charm and humor of the scene."
Check out the trunk on the elephant at the right side of the image. That isn't creativity. That's a complete absence of understanding images on the part of the AI. Looks cool though, huh?
Not to mention how my interest killed American Gothic No, not that American Gothic (Which wasn’t nearly as interesting)! THIS American Gothic.
Get it? Goggles? Long view? Sigh. No one appreciates good humor.
By the way, if you want to pay someone with a nasty mind to tell you some of the ways your wonderful technology might cause unexpected trouble, get in touch. I can help!
It's important to point out that the elephants weren't in the wild, even though you can probably figure that out for yourself. I mean, how often does an elephant wandering around the savanna actually run across a hose?
Fruit Loops!