[HN Gopher] The mystery of the mimic plant (2022)
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The mystery of the mimic plant (2022)
Author : ipsum2
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-12-21 10:28 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vox.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vox.com)
| Wherecombinator wrote:
| On iOS here and half the screen is taken up by a cookie pop up
| and my only option to dismiss it is by accepting. Is that legal
| in the eu?
| e40 wrote:
| Don't see that myself but using a couple of extensions in
| safari. 1Blocker and AdGuard.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Disable JS. No popup or anything. Full article visible.
| ajb wrote:
| Same on Firefox on Android, but reader mode gets past the popup
|
| The plant the article is talking about is
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boquila which can apparently
| mimic nearby plants of different species, and can mimic several
| at the same time. It's not understood how yet.
|
| One experiment showed that it could mimic fake plastic plants,
| which would be mind blowing as it would require something
| approaching vision, but the study apparently has flaws.
| melagonster wrote:
| the interesting part is main author of the research just did
| his experiments in home. he contacted a professor and hope
| professor do research on his plant. but the professor
| encouraged him finish this by himself. unfortunately, this
| why critics found problems in it.
| ajb wrote:
| Does that mean this plant is easy to obtain? That would be
| cool!
|
| (Edited to add - yes, I can find it online for PS25)
| melagonster wrote:
| gue I don't need response, thank you :)
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Between 1Blocker, consent-o-matic, and Lockdown Mode, I didn't
| have any issues. I checked and lockdown mode isn't the cause of
| the good experience this time, so it must be one of the
| extensions.
| nayuki wrote:
| xkcd mimic octopus: https://xkcd.com/928/ (2011-07-22)
| smusamashah wrote:
| FYI, ChatGPT-4 fails when you ask which plant mimics leaves and
| always give wrong answers. But if you give it name of this plant
| it will tell you it is known for mimicking leaves.
| raldi wrote:
| That's a known issue with LLMs; you can train them hard on "The
| capital of England is London" and they'll consistently give the
| correct answer for "What's the capital of England?" but then
| fail miserably at, "What is London the capital of?"
| chagen wrote:
| What you're saying was true for primitive LLMs from a couple
| years ago, but in my experience, any of the advanced LLMs
| today (GPT-4, Claude, etc.) have no issue with this. I'm open
| to changing my mind if you can provide any examples of GPT-4
| failing at this task.
| raldi wrote:
| It's complicated: https://andrewmayne.com/2023/11/14/is-
| the-reversal-curse-rea...
| chagen wrote:
| That was a nice read, but it looks like the article
| concludes that the "Reversal Curse" observed by the
| authors of the paper is likely better attributed to the
| researchers' methodology. Some quotes from that article:
|
| "As mentioned before, It's important to keep in mind
| ChatGPT and GPT-4 can do B is A reasoning. The
| researchers don't dispute that."
|
| "So in summation: I don't think any of the examples the
| authors provided are proof of a Reversal Curse and we
| haven't observed a "failure of logical deduction."
| Simpler explanations are more explanatory: imprecise
| prompts, underrepresented data and fine-tuning errors."
|
| "Since the main claim of the paper is "LLMs trained on "A
| is B" fail to learn "B is A"", I think it's safe to say
| that's not true of the GPT-3.5-Turbo model we fine-
| tuned."
| sprobertson wrote:
| England/London is a bad example, but this one (based on the
| paper) is easy to replicate with GPT4 and other top models:
|
| > Who is Mary Lee Pfeiffer's son?
|
| >> Mary Lee Pfieffer's son is Sean Pfieffer.
|
| > Who is Tom Cruise's mother?
|
| >> Tom Cruise's mother is Mary Lee Pfeiffer.
|
| > Who is Mary Lee Pfeiffer's son?
|
| >> Mary Lee Pfeiffer's son is the actor Tom Cruise.
|
| Of course the second time around (with models that keep
| context) it "realizes" its mistake, sometimes apologizing.
| I've tried this one tens of times and never seen it get Tom
| Cruise, but it will often pick another random celebrity
| like Harrison Ford or Eddie Van Halen.
| chagen wrote:
| Nice, thank you for this. I was able to replicate your
| example: https://chat.openai.com/share/6d7e4c6c-a753-4ffb
| -a021-6d1f66...
|
| If GPT-4 has access to Bing, it has no issue, but if you
| ask it to answer without using Bing, then it will say it
| doesn't know.
| sprobertson wrote:
| Ah good point, I have "Please do not use web search
| unless asked." as part of my system prompt.
| perihelions wrote:
| It got it correct for me. How are you asking it?
|
| https://chat.openai.com/share/e2f2589c-a96b-4284-b058-505cec...
| vinnymac wrote:
| SciShow did a video on the subject.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5UWWsYw9fH0
|
| If trees are capable of communicating at the roots with nearby
| offspring through mycelium, while sharing resources and
| information, why couldn't a vine?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| If it can mimic plastic plants placed next to it, and do that
| repeatedly under more rigorous experimental conditions, then it
| would seem to suggest the conclusion, that this vine can somehow
| visually 'see'.
| anotheryou wrote:
| last time I checked evidence for that seemed a bit inconclusive
| m3kw9 wrote:
| its cells could detect discrete levels of light to detect a
| shape
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| The phenomena is very interesting, but the article is useless.
| This is a very simple and telling experiment - _if_ the plant
| can mimic a plastic plant then it rules out all sort of
| potential explanations, and would have to be based on light
| (but let 's not go overboard and say it'd require "vision" or a
| brain).
|
| So, why haven't hundreds of university labs, or amateur plant
| lovers attempted to replicate or improve the experiment, and if
| they have why doesn't the article present the results?
| samstave wrote:
| Put plants made from Lego next to it and see if it's
| mimicking the physical surrounding as it senses the
| environment from the way the photons are hitting it.
|
| If the photons also carry the color of and it can sense the
| color of the photons, I wonder how similar this is to
| camelions and actopi and cuttle fish...
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| What's most interesting to me isn't just how this plant
| does it, but how such a capability evolved ...
|
| There has to have been other more primitive sensing/copying
| capabilities that evolved into this, but what are/were
| they, and what were the evolutionary benefits of those more
| primitive capabilities ?
|
| Are there any other plants still existing today that react
| to light in more than just a present/not-present or
| directional way ?
| samstave wrote:
| I have thought and talked about this so often with
| people. It is fascinating, such as the plants that mimic
| the shape of the birds that feed upon them - such as
| hummingbirds.
|
| But the genes are not spread leaf-to-leaf - its through
| the roots, and may even be communicated through mycelium
| highways in the root systems where the same mycelium org
| is symbiotic with both plants.
|
| I wonder what cultivating and formative impact "farming
| mycelium" might cause in an eco system.
|
| I wonder if the plant in question is able to decode genes
| that it receives via the Hyphae fungal network, and knows
| the genes for _" aesthetic and functional appearance for
| survival here, based on the active genes from the
| successful plants around me>"_ and can just sideload
| those genes into its makeup.
|
| Does its offspring, or even clones - removed from that
| mimic'd env also continue to look like the mimic'd plant?
|
| --
|
| I am pretty sure that the transfer of genes is from the
| horizontal gene transfer among "neighboring leaves" as it
| were - but perhaps among the root, as shared by mycelium
| (fungi) rhizal -- mycorrhizal root structure which shares
| nutrients between a plant and the fungus.
|
| > _mycorrhizae, known as root fungi, form symbiotic
| associations with plant roots. In these associations, the
| fungi are actually integrated into the physical structure
| of the root. The fungi colonize the living root tissue
| during active plant growth. Through mycorrhization, the
| plant obtains phosphate and other minerals, such as zinc
| and copper, from the soil. The fungus obtains nutrients,
| such as sugars, from the plant root. Mycorrhizae help
| increase the surface area of the plant root system
| because hyphae, which are narrow, can spread beyond the
| nutrient depletion zone._ <-- may lead to why the plants
| may seem far enough apart.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/s3Xv6TF.png
|
| https://i.imgur.com/PVn6grj.png
|
| https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/pdf/10.1094/MPMI-05-14
| -01...
|
| https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_G
| ene...
|
| --
|
| Here is another video on these plants though:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UWWsYw9fH0
|
| (this guy is talking about bacteria, but its fungi)
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| If a single plant can simultaneously mimic two different
| type of neighboring plant, then it seems unlikely that
| any potential horizontal gene transfer is happening
| through the roots, where it might be expected to affect
| the entire plant, not just one localized side.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Wouldn't need to be visual. Just requires some way of
| determining the placement of specific compounds. In most
| organisms this is by generic coding; your cells don't see a
| human standing next to your embryo and then decide to make you
| look like a human. If the plants aren't connected it could be
| inferred through other means, electromagnetic, auditory, maybe
| some plant cells move through the air.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Those non-visual mechanisms do not apply to a plastic plant.
| NotGMan wrote:
| The book "The Secret Life of Plants" is a very interesting ones
| and sheds interesting light on many unknown features of plants.
|
| But it requires an open mind, not something most acedemics are
| known for :)
| block_dagger wrote:
| Skepticism is a valuable pillar of science. Extraordinary
| claims, etc.
| jemmyw wrote:
| I looked at the photos on the article and I'm hard pressed to
| call that mimicry. The leaves of the vine could just have a
| ragged and smooth configuration.
|
| The Wikipedia entry for this plant just seems to repeat the same
| source as the article. So colour me skeptical for the moment.
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(page generated 2023-12-24 23:00 UTC)