Facing Facts

Artificial intelligence---and machines mimicking, if not having, consciousness and sentience---has revived arguments over what it means to be human.

The debate has its origins in antiquity, when philosophers reflected on whether animals were capable of rational thought (their answer: no).

Dolly, the first cloned sheep, circa 1996 (newscientist)

Modern scientists who have examined the communications and learning abilities of chimpanzees, dolphins, and other mammals have shaken that ancient certainty.

And then there are sheep, which can recognize people from photographs, even those taken from different angles. Scientists

trained the sheep to associate the image of one person, Barack Obama for example, with a food reward. They were shown both an image of Obama and another face next to it. When the sheep tapped the former president's image, it broke an infrared beam and dispensed the treat. Eight times out of ten, the eight sheep in the study knew which face to associate with food.

To truly test that the sheep were recognizing faces and not just familiar photos, the researchers also presented them with different images of each celebrity, including from skewed angles. When shown these different perspectives of each face, the sheep still recognized them more than half the time.

I enjoy dining on lamb and pork as much as the next person, but qualms about the morality of eating animals that evince some forms of intelligence are growing. As for chicken or fish, bring on that second helping.

“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.” ― Mahatma Gandhi