SapporoChrisan hour ago
"She remained with it for several hours and possibly even days." Interesting article, but that comment veers into speculation. Speculation diminishes the value of a scientific article.
adzman hour ago
I'm confused by how that is speculation.
SapporoChrisan hour ago
The key word is possibly. Any statement with possibly in it could be true or false, it is speculation.
pastel8739a few seconds ago
Rather, the word “possibly” indicates uncertainty, the very foundation of science.
[deleted]an hour agocollapsed
aaron69534 minutes ago
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georgemcbayan hour ago
Blows my mind that so many people just have this hardened internalized idea that we're somehow significantly different than any other animal.
Sure, we've got them beat on language and planning, but we're currently in the process of being passed up on both those fronts by multi-dimensional arrays of floating point numbers sitting inside of sand. So, like, how special is that then, really?
jbotz4 minutes ago
Almost certainly our linguistic abilities (and through them, planning skills) are vastly greater than those of all other animals, but that is a matter of degree, not of category. The one thing in which we are categorically different from all other animals is that we learned to control and make fire... and quite possibly the linguistic abilities followed from that rather than the other way around[0]. Until the 20th century basically all of the advantages to technology bestowed upon our species directly flowed from our use of fire. Maybe our species should have been called "homo ignis"; the fire ape.
Obviously the cetaceans will never have that benefit, even if by some other objective measures they turned out to be as intelligent as humans.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catching_Fire:_How_Cooking_Mad...
parasti7 minutes ago
It's like that time when they "discovered" that babies can feel pain.
ggsp38 minutes ago
I know the point you’re making is half facetious—do you feel like LLMs are specifically getting better at planning?
georgemcbay34 minutes ago
> do you feel like LLMs are specifically getting better at planning?
When harnessed, yes. They still suck at it, but they are getting significantly better over a relatively short time.
And you don't have to look very far in any direction economically or politically to wonder if humans in 2026 are really as good at planning as we like to think and/or if we may be regressing in this area. Because a lot of things we are responsible for aren't going very well for the majority.
card_zero42 minutes ago
Do LLMs grieve?
sssilver13 minutes ago
Insofar as grieving is an inherently, fundamentally a very particular chemical process, the answer is a resounding “no”.
moomoo113 minutes ago
do humans? or is it only because we're the ones doing the research and so we say we do?
i think most people are automatons and can be programmed.
it is the most moral thing to program people to operate in ways that causes least harm to everyone else around them that has to live with them.
people like certain foods, outrage, and gambling/fomo.
georgemcbay38 minutes ago
Nope.
They can pretend to, of course, and use the language of grief, but if you can't feel the cold bottomless pit that has bored through your gut then you aren't really grieving.
card_zero31 minutes ago
Do whales grieve?
stackghost28 minutes ago
They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t
card_zero21 minutes ago
You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.
Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
georgemcbay29 minutes ago
> Do whales grieve?
Just as much as any human that isn't me, as far as I can tell from all available evidence.
So, yes, I absolutely believe they grieve, just like I believe humans who aren't me grieve.
nexie2 minutes ago
I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
gigatexalan hour ago
Any parent here who has known this loss can relate. Didn’t think I’d see this on HN but yeah this is heartbreaking.
nexie3 minutes ago
I’m sorry, my thoughts go out to you.
zer00eyzan hour ago
Orcas have also been seen to carry their dead calf's around.
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/southern-reside...
shuwixan hour ago
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sehwan hour ago
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