Which Animal Will Develop Human-Level Intelligence in the Future?

By Daniel Kolitz on 28 Aug 2019 at 1:00AM

Animals that think and talk like humans have long enchanted the public—in the form of myths, children’s books, and overrated TV shows. Somehow even the most mundane aspects of daily life—paying taxes, or preparing sandwiches, or staring at yourself in the mirror with a drained, sallow look and thinking, who am I, how did I get here, etc.—are infinitely more amusing when it’s a squirrel who’s doing them. But will there ever be a day when this endlessly renewable source of joy/delight will be available outside of entertainment? When you can simply stroll into your closest park to watch two animals grumbling about the weather? And—if so—which animal will be the first to develop this human-like intelligence? For this week’s Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of animal experts to find out.

Suzana Herculano-Houzel
Associate Professor, Psychology, Vanderbilt University, and the author of The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable

There’s no easy answer to this one. First, because it depends on how you define intelligence. Plenty of animals out there have the same capabilities that we have, at least in terms of direct problem solving, visual memory, hierarchical planning, etc. As for what animal comes closest to humans in terms of numbers of cortical neurons—and therefore supposedly in the extent of their biological capabilities—that would be gorillas and orangutans. But notice that they live much shorter lives, and have much more limited cultures; their societies have not been as organised as ours, as complex as ours, for as long as ours has. So there’s really no straightforward comparison.

Are there animals out there that could learn to do things that we do? The answer is definitely yes. Look up Ayumu, the video game-playing Japanese chimpanzee. She beat college students at the game—until somebody decided to give graduate students a fair chance by letting them practice for just as long, and then, it was a tie.

More:
https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2019/08/which-animal-will-develop-human-level-intelligence-in-the-future/