From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Jun 09 1997 - 11:18:10 MDT
On Mon, 9 Jun 1997, Brian D Williams wrote:
> I believe Sean has this right, I remember reading this also. The
> pigeons were working on an assembly line that manufactured gelatin
> capsules, they were being trained to recognize deformed capsules
> called "skags" as I recall and peck the appropriate button. The
> health concerns about the pigeons doomed the project.
Besides, this is the field where computer vision is getting better
and better (and actually earns money, as far as I know). No real need
to have expensive and variable pigeons when you can use a camera and
some software.
The main problem with using other lifeforms for various tasks is that
they are usually evolved for something completely different. It is
better to evolve life that fits the task or change the task so it
fits the life than forcing life to adapt to the task. A typical
example is the use of surgical maggots to clean wounds, a task for
which they are perfectly adapted. So maybe we could create cleaning
cockroaches for our homes?
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