Right now, dogs beat AI by a mile, specifically when it concerns social interactions and emotional intelligence.
Our furry companions aren’t as smart as dolphins or chimpanzees, but they are so much better than artificial intelligence (AI). That’s what Mark Cuban believes, as well as other AI experts. The serial entrepreneur even went so far as to say that his dog is a better problem solver than any other AI tool.
Cuban had an interview with Wired last September, and an interesting question came up. The interviewer asked Cuban to imagine first that he was blind, and then asked the businessman which of the two would he trust if he needs to go from point A to point B: a seeing eye-dog or a self-driving car. Without a doubt, Cuban chose the dog.
Cuban further explained that a dog has an incredible ability to sense roadblocks. Meanwhile, a self-driving car doesn’t understand what could be dangerous or not. If the car doesn’t recognize an object, it won’t have an idea how to respond to it. This means that, right now, we can’t fully trust AI when it comes to guiding people in real-world situations.
To illustrate how smarter dogs are than AI, Cuban cited his dog Tucks as an example. According to him, he could put his mini Australian Shepherd in any situation, and he would figure out what to do. On the other hand, when he uses a phone with an AI software and show it a video, it doesn’t have a clue how to respond to it. Cuban thinks it will still take a long time to improve AI’s limited capabilities.
Being Trained on Text Isn’t Enough
Other experts nodded in agreement with Cuban and what he had to say about AI. In fact, Yann LeCun, AI chief at Meta, shared that AI tools cannot learn how to use a dishwasher, which something that a 10-year-old child could learn in a couple of minutes. However, AI is capable of passing exams in law, business, biology, and other fields. LeCun added that AI tools won’t be able to have an intellect similar to that of a human or a pet, unless robots and systems develop senses or learn through movement. What they’ve been trained with is a huge amount of text, and that’s not enough to understand real-world scenarios.
Despite AI being inferior to a dog’s intelligence, Cuban still encouraged to explore and invest more in the former. He believes that military dominance would be strongly linked to AI in the future.
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Stories That Show How Smart Dogs Are
Scientists have done a lot of work in the field of dog cognition to prove that our furry pets are so much smarter than we think. No, they don’t just think about treats, toys, and more treats. Studies (even social media videos) have shown they can understand mathematics. They can even demonstrate an amazing memory recall and save a life by sensing another person’s emotions:
- Dogs recall favorite toys: A recent experiment has been conducted to put a dog’s long-term memory to test. In this experiment, they learned the names of 12 toys and played with them. The researchers kept the toys away and then showed them to the dogs two years later. To the researchers’ surprise, they were able to remember the toys’ names, with an accuracy rate of up to 60%.
- Dog’s instincts saved a baby from being abused: The powerful sense of smell of Killian, the heroic dog of Jordan family, detected the threat in the voice, emotions, and body language of an abusive babysitter. The parents were at first ignorant of the caretaker’s wrongdoings, but they later found out the truth by observing Killian’s behavior around her.
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From The Club
The ability to pick up social cues alone makes dogs unique to other animals and, of course, superior to robots. Add to that the protective and caring nature of dogs, and they are definitely the better option when humans need assistance. I have to agree with Cuban that there’s still a long way to go for AI to fully understand the intricacies of the real world. Learning by experience, which dogs can do, leads to knowledge and wisdom that are hard to match.
