Capuchin Papi Masters 15-Inch Touchscreen, Proving AI Tool for Wild Monkey Cognition
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 28
Capuchin Papi Masters 15-Inch Touchscreen, Proving AI Tool for Wild Monkey Cognition
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 28
Summary
Papi, an alpha white-faced capuchin in Costa Rica’s Taboga Forest Reserve, learned that touching a 15-inch screen triggered a dried banana reward, giving researchers a proof of concept for CapuchinAI.
The portable station uses AI-powered facial recognition to detect capuchins in real time, distinguish them from other forest animals and record responses to a simple associative-learning task.
Marcela Benítez of Emory University and colleagues trained the model on images from years of fieldwork, then built a setup with a touchscreen, webcam and 3-D-printed food dispenser.
More advanced versions are due to be tested in coming weeks as scientists try to measure cognition in the wild and link monkeys’ decision-making and intelligence to survival and evolutionary success.