[HN Gopher] Ai, Japanese chimpanzee who counted and painted dies...
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Ai, Japanese chimpanzee who counted and painted dies at 49
Author : reconnecting
Score : 163 points
Date : 2026-01-12 09:10 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Sirikon wrote:
| Hey universe, when people is asking for the end of AI, they don't
| mean this.
| mrintegrity wrote:
| Would love to see some of his paintings, let me just google "AI
| chimp painting" .. oh..
| fyltr wrote:
| There are some of them in this article
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-017-0604-0
| mrintegrity wrote:
| Thanks, they seem like more than just random splashes of
| color.. possibly I'm anthropomorphising but it feels like it
| was straining to draw something specific like a young child
| would.
| baxtr wrote:
| It's hardly distinguishable from modern art though!
| shevy-java wrote:
| Yes, same with Koko. I think they do not fully understand
| art and abstraction, nor profits made by good art. It is
| too abstract.
|
| They can, however had, understand sign language and symbol
| language, and basically that art is also an abstraction.
| Will probably take a while before we can identify abstract
| art by apes.
| falloutx wrote:
| Hey, she did her best.
| c22 wrote:
| I agree there is intent there, but it doesn't look like an
| effort to draw a still life, more like the chimp was
| fascinated with the patterns and techniques it could
| manipulate.
| aix1 wrote:
| More about Ai:
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-017-0604-0
| hxugufjfjf wrote:
| Impossible to not make a joke about this being just more ai news
| on the front page.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| Apparently, since the majority of top level comments right now
| - about 6 at the time of my comment - are making basically the
| same joke.
|
| I thought this place was supposed to be better than reddit in
| such ways. Do better, HN.
| walthamstow wrote:
| > Born wild, Ai was soon taken into captivity and sold to KUPRI
| in 1977 by an animal trader (this type of sale became illegal in
| 1980 with Japan's ratification of CITES).
|
| So how do we do this kind of thing now?
| shevy-java wrote:
| I think monkeys are still bred in some zoos. I know that
| because there is typically media outrage when monkeys are
| killed in zoos when they were overbred. It's a very
| questionable system, since they are basically prisoners, then
| kind of forced or encouraged to breed, and then whacked to
| death when there are "too many". It's weird because zoos also
| claim to help preserve some species.
| lukan wrote:
| Zoos do help to preserve species. Whether that is worth it,
| when their natural habitat is destroyed is a different
| question.
|
| And if we agree there should be Zoos (I don't) then breeding
| the animals there is definitely nicer, than capturing a wild
| animal and force it to adopt to the prison livestyle.
| saidnooneever wrote:
| doing something good doesn't make other things also good.
| there is some kind of demand they are servicing or a need
| they are having which they cant meet in some other way
| (finances..) though, which is likely the root of the issue
| rather than the zoos' existence itself. this is ofcourse
| ignoring the opinion (which i also hold) that zoos
| themselves are essentially or inherently bad. kids'
| enjoyment is not a good reason for cruelty and
| imprisonment/enslavement. neither is money or anyhting
| else. Domesticated animals is a different story.
| brador wrote:
| Why should we?
| fedeb95 wrote:
| does someone have a video about him counting and/or painting?
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Reminds me of AiAi in Super Monkey Ball.
| eej71 wrote:
| Glad to see I wasn't the only one! That Super Monkey Ball game
| on the GameCube was just amazing.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| It was all about the party games. Especially target and golf!
| shevy-java wrote:
| I misread this as AI initially ...
|
| The only art-centric monkey I knew was Koko, the female gorilla.
|
| Here she draws some things:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iixL0CMOAM
|
| Smartest monkey I ever saw was Kanzi though:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENKinbfgrkU
|
| I think it is only a question and matter of time before the
| prison systems for monkeys may have to be reconsidered
| completely. Of course even smarter monkeys than Kanzi won't reach
| human brain functions, but they are also very convincingly
| extremely clever and can adapt. Numerous videos where monkeys
| handle (!) smartphones show this already and this is just the
| beginning. Like, in the movie Planet of the Apes. Just long-term
| in smaller steps.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Don't call him a monk- aaaaarghhh...
|
| https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/The_Librarian
| dejj wrote:
| "I think this was a powerful lesson on the dangers of AI. Which
| by the way means 'love' in Chinese."
|
| Elon Tusk, Rick and Morty, S4E4:
| https://youtu.be/xQHCz9ZZorA?t=129
| mettamage wrote:
| It also means love in Japanese!
| brap wrote:
| Koko, that chimp's alright.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Here's Rambo, an orangutan, driving a golf cart in Dubai:
| https://youtu.be/ERTrOwEb5M8
| bbor wrote:
| And before someone comes in to correct: yes, we're monkeys. No,
| the taxonomists don't know any better!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey
| rafram wrote:
| That article seems to say that the standard definition of
| "monkey" does _not_ include apes, and thus humans.
| technothrasher wrote:
| It doesn't just seem to say it, it says it explicitly:
| "monkeys are, in terms of currently recognized taxa, non-
| hominoid simians". Perhaps the accepted terminology may
| change at some point, but currently apes are not monkeys.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| I remember reading or hearing that if we follow taxonomnic
| rules from the ground up, humans would be classified as
| hagfish (don't quote me on that, I have a terrible memory)
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| We've not made much progress on this front since Plato's
| featherless biped.
| conception wrote:
| Fun fact! Koko's abilities to sign and communicate were a total
| fraud!
|
| https://bigthink.com/life/ape-sign-language/
| junon wrote:
| To dismiss it as total fraud is disingenuous, but I do agree
| that the personification of some of those videos is quite
| egregious. I don't think anyone expected a chimp to make
| coherent, grammatically correct sentences. But the
| relationship between sign/vocalization and emotion/desire is
| strong and seen in many animals, such as parrots. It depends
| on your definition of communication I suppose.
| moi2388 wrote:
| Is it?
|
| Afaik they didn't actually sign anything other than random
| words, an "food" every second word or so..
| conception wrote:
| There's no evidence that KoKo ever communicated a word and
| had understanding of what the word meant outside of basic
| Pavlovian associations.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The main issue wasn't grammatical correctness, it was being
| grammatical at all. It's not surprising that an animal can
| learn individual pieces of vocabulary: anybody whose dog
| loses its mind when the word "walk" is mentioned, or
| watched meerkats for significant periods of time can
| observe vocabulary in animals.
|
| Koko was intended to be taught _grammar_ , specifically the
| ability to express new thoughts by combining her vocabulary
| in an ordered way. Despite Francine Patterson's best
| efforts to convince the world otherwise, Koko never
| achieved this.
| mettamage wrote:
| There's some research that some birds understand grammar
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmys2abx4co
| bicolao wrote:
| > I misread this as AI initially ...
|
| The japanese have it harder because "ai" means love. But
| perhaps "love" will be written in kanji while "AI" in katakana,
| so writing form is not confusing.
| kagevf wrote:
| From what I've seen, "AI" is typically written with the
| "Roman" (latin) letters, or translated as Ren Gong Zhi Neng
| (AI) or as Sheng Cheng AI (generative AI like LLMs).
| stevenwoo wrote:
| An anthropologist writes about communication and language in
| The Language Puzzle, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-
| reviews/steven-mithen/the... , TLDR, a little speculative but
| no primate exhibits evidence beyond a very primitive form of
| communication - only the extreme outliers are used in
| demonstrations, which are not much upon closer examination,
| there's probably an evolutionary step needed for any other
| primate than man to use language as far as we can tell. There
| are key differences in brain and vocalization physiology
| between humans and other primates .
| falloutx wrote:
| God took the wrong Ai, RIP
| comrade1234 wrote:
| My coworkers gifted me a painting by cheeta (the last chimp to
| play him) when I left the job. I framed it professionally in
| rattan and banana wood. The painting itself looks very similar to
| the paintings by Ai- same color schemes and patterns.
|
| Edit to add instead of a new comment: I also remember how good of
| a life he had in retirement. He lived in an apartment-like
| dwelling. Slept in a bed, woke up and ate some fruit. Would plink
| on the piano awhile, maybe paint some, go for a swim or walk,
| maybe play the piano or paint some more.... it was amusing to
| read while slaving away at the coding mines.
| beaker52 wrote:
| Sleep easy fellow earthling, there's a new Ai in town now.
| RankingMember wrote:
| I'd genuinely like a black bar for this- cross-species respect.
| xvxvx wrote:
| 49 years enslaved in a laboratory, forced to learn tricks, likely
| deprived of food and comfort until she played along. No clue why
| Jane Goodall embraced such cruelty. Showing how intelligent non-
| human animals are, then forcing them to endure such inhumane
| treatment is par the course for 'scientists'.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_(chimpanzee)
| grugdev42 wrote:
| For anyone who is interested in this sort of thing, I can
| recommend this book:
|
| Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees by Roger Fouts
|
| Absolutely brilliant!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Finally, some Ai art I can get behind.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| An important comma
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| is this the first generative Ai art?
| nephihaha wrote:
| Probably a better artist.
| pablonm wrote:
| The Einstein of chimpanzees
| big-chungus4 wrote:
| W Deji
| timwalz wrote:
| More skills than AOC mid-thirties.
| rurban wrote:
| I just watched the horror movie Primate, where such a chimp got
| rabies and starts killing everyone by the numbers in very clever
| and horrid ways. Not funny
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(page generated 2026-01-12 23:00 UTC)