
Chimpanzee Browsing Instagram on iPhone with Precision - okket
https://9to5mac.com/2019/04/25/chimpanzee-using-instagram-iphone/
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ASalazarMX
With precision is too vague. The chimpanzee actually chooses what to see:
scrolls, watches chimp videos, swipes off boring snake videos, etc. It's said
they are roughly as intelligent as a toddler, and it certainly looks that way.
Awesome.

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thestartup
This sounds like a good demonstration of how mindless the activity of
scrolling through Instagram truly is. (Even a monkey can do it).

It's similar to watching TV or mindlessly browsing the web for non-
intellectual activities. Perhaps we should be concerned about the impact of
these technologies on our evolution as a species. There does seem to be
supporting research for this (sorry for not providing links/ref).

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djtriptych
Why isn't it a demonstration of how intuitive the hardware and UI are.

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higginsc
haters gonna hate

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jchrisa
I used to play with an idea to build kiosks for wild chimps with video phone
recording software. With an interface tuned for them, I wonder if you could
build social software that actually provided utility to the chimpanzees. I can
imagine something like TikTok being able to send news or otherwise connect
them in a meaningful way.

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chatmasta
There is a Ted talk about an “Interspecies Internet:”
[https://www.ted.com/talks/the_interspecies_internet_an_idea_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/the_interspecies_internet_an_idea_in_progress/up-
next?language=en)

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wortelefant
A 2005 study observed this behavior in macaques; male monkeys would pay some
amount of fruit juice to look at leaders' faces or females' hindquarters
("socially useful information").
[https://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/full/news050131-5.ht...](https://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/full/news050131-5.html)

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coldcode
Impressive, but I would be more impressed if it started posting and generating
followers, then monetizing the followers into a media empire. Isn't that the
whole point of instagram?

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imgabe
There's already a monkey selfie created by a wildlife photographer who set up
a camera that monkeys could activate to try to get a picture of them. It's
embroiled in a copyright dispute over whether the photographer or the monkey
owns the photo:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute)

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saagarjha
> The disputes involve Wikimedia Commons and the blog Techdirt, which have
> hosted the images following their publication in newspapers in July 2011
> over Slater's objections, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
> (PETA), who have argued that the macaque should be assigned the copyright

> In April 2018, the appeals court affirmed that animals can not legally hold
> copyrights and expressed concern that PETA's motivations had been to promote
> their own interests rather than to protect the legal rights of animals.

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hguhghuff
Back in the old days there was slot of talk about how hard computers were to
use, and how much work remained to be done to make user interfaces usable.

The task is complete.

Also here is a painting elephant:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY)

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Jyaif
FWIW the elephant was tortured into learning how to do this.

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nickelcitymario
It was? Do you have a source for this? That's horrible if true.

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rchaud
If this is the video I'm thinking of (can't open it at work), the elephant is
chained to a post while painting. These types of "sanctuaries" are nothing of
the sort, they exploit animals for tourist $.

There are tourist-friendly elephant sanctuaries that are built on respecting
the animals' personal space; Elephant Nature Park in Thailand is one. Tourists
are basically only allowed to observe the elephants in a forest/jungle
habitat. At other places, tourists are allowed to hug and play with baby
elephants, and the animals are trained to put up with it, while the mothers
are chained and kept apart from the babies during "tourist time".

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nickelcitymario
That's awful. Thanks for the info.

FWIW, I don't see any chains in the video, but it does seem more likely that
they were trained abusively (like circus elephants) to get them to do this.

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wishrider
The left swipe doesn't work on my android phone, I have to click the icons.
Does that only work on the iPhone?

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saagarjha
Yes, it’s a standard iOS gesture with no equivalent on Android other than
implementations that apps try to come up themselves.

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dhritzkiv
Not entirely: the standard behaviour of navigation on iOS is to allow swiping
from only the left edge to go back. It seems that Instagram added the ability
to swipe left from anywhere on the screen, not just the edge.

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saagarjha
I don't use Instagram, but I'm not surprised that they've decided to
"customize" that behavior.

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gurumeditations
Can’t help but be reminded of a great album

[https://youtu.be/uVSBawXaoT4](https://youtu.be/uVSBawXaoT4)

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waffleguy
So there is at least one intelligent Instagram user out there.

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kylek
Next unicorn IPO: Tinder for chimps

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whitepoplar
You kid,
but...[https://twitter.com/Sierra_2015/status/929822581699629061](https://twitter.com/Sierra_2015/status/929822581699629061)

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lukaa
Go monkeys go. Even title make me laugh.

