Why Koko (Probably) Couldn't Talk (Sorry) | The Deep Dive

Hey all! I put up a community post about a piece that offered a critique to this video which seems to have gone missing (thanks, YouTube) Anyway, having had a few days to reflect on it and digest it, I decided to move it here and write out a more fleshed out message - and maybe write a bit about how the sausage is made, so to speak. I put the piece in the description if you wanna read. I still broadly stand by this video, and the conclusions I drew in it. I still find Terraces paper a more compelling case than not; and there are bits of the critique I disagree with. But the piece highlighted a few shortcomings that I feel are valid and worth including here. The first is the lack of any real substantive analysis of behavioural linguistics - and I've had a few non-Chompsky linguists reach out to me about it and their chats have been very eye opening. The second, more important one in my opinion, was about the implicit ableism in the ways I talked about language and language acquisition; especially with regards to neurodivergence. The framing question of the video was "why were we trying to teach these animals how to talk?" and the answer I leaned towards was a more philosophical one: the idea that animals generally (apes especially) were viewed as lesser versions of people. People got bored with Clever Hans when it was revealed Hans was using his owner's body language cues to determine the right answer to a maths puzzle. Hans' ability to count had little to do with his capacity for understanding human speech or mathematics, and everything to do with his ability to read human behaviour. That's a form of intelligence! It's theory of mind! It's interpreting the signals someone else is giving off, and then using your own brain to decode that and find meaning! It's not language, but it is a very powerful form of communication But its not one we found valuable. Ape communications seemed to have the undercurrent of humans - like Prometheus with Fire - will give them language so they may transcend the constraints of their animal selves, and be more like us. For we: we are the God species. This view - in my opinion - justified all manners of abuse and mistreatment, because we couldn't see animals -- like Koko, like Nim, like Kanzi -- for who they were. Where this breaks down is in the ways I considered, or rather didn't consider, neurodivergence. I didn’t think about how the research I cited centres and reinforces neurotypical, non-disabled experiences; I wasn't careful enough to make it clear that people who don't have what would be considered typical linguistic levels, or don't have typical styles of communication, are still full humans who deserve to be treated with love, respect, and dignity; and I implicitly reinforced those problematic ideas and notions. Many neurodiverse people don't show certain hallmarks or traits Terrace wanted to observe in Nim, and Terrace himself, I learned recently, was deeply dismissive of atypical kinds of communication. He echoed the view of others who viewed autistic patients as lesser people, rather than full people. I don't think I need to explain why that's problematic. All people are full people. It was baggage I brought to the table, and it should have been baggage I was more introspective about. It’s an area I should have walked more carefully, and looked at through a more nuanced lens. I should have been conscious of the fact I don't have the best filters for seeing those kinds of connections. I can’t imagine they were the only person to feel this way, and I wanted to thank them for their feedback, and apologise for reinforcing those kinds of ideas. It matters that we're critical of those kinds of ideas. Because they're used as grounds to sterilise and kill disabled people. And they're not ideas that should be reinforced implicitly. As they say in the critique: “Ideas have power, wield them with care” I’ll try and wield with more care moving forwards.

the reason they stopped studying nim is because the “give me eat orange” sentence was the peak of language

When the chimp said "GIVE ORANGE ME GIVE EAT ORANGE ME EAT ORANGE GIVE ME EAT ORANGE GIVE ME YOU"..... I felt that.

pretty sure koko’s handler just committed too much into teaching koko language that by the time she realised her all her effort was futile she was neck deep in copium

I remember first reading about Koko and thinking it was amazing. I especially remember the finger-bracelet = ring part which sounded pretty convincing. Then years later I read a transcript of one of her "conversations" and 90% of what she was signing was "koko love" "give treat nut" "eat give nut" "treat treat koko" "eat nut treat".

My Cat is smart and is capable of human communication. I asked him who was the communist former president of the People's Republic of China and he replied "Mao".

"cows have friends" sure "and enemies" HELL YEAH

As a disabled person, I have seen first hand how people who can’t or struggle to speak verbally get treated like infants or animals. I was dating someone my age who struggled to speak as a result of a traumatic brain injury. He was smart. As smart as me. He just had trouble actually speaking. But people who didn’t know him would hear him speak and instantly switch to baby voice. I even see it with myself. I’ll tell people I’m autistic and they’re like “but you’re so smart/outgoing/talkative?!” And what’s actually happening is their thinking “autism means stupid and barely human, this person in front of me isn’t that. I’m confused” and it pisses me off to no end.

The most ridiculous part of the story is that Koko's true communication skills were amazing enough -- they didn't need to be exagerated, which only served to call into question all of her accomplishments and possibly diminsh her legacy. Why is nothing ever good enough when it comes to (some ) humans?

"Nim would be taken to an empty bare classroom with no toys or climbing frames and was forced to do language drills." Can relate

yeah after koko's "appeal to humanity" i knew it was bs, theres no way a gorilla can grasp the ways humans destroy the earth or use symbolism like "i am nature"

A detail that I find particularly telling is Nim's reaction to seeing someone he recognized after spending time in that horrible place. That's an emotional response, it's remembering and recognizing a specific individual, and associating that individual with the circumstances in which he last saw them. Researchers were so focused on defining intelligence and communications in terms of human languages that they ignored animals demonstrating intelligence and communication on their own terms.

Jackson Galaxy (the cat guy) said that we shouldn't push a cat to speak by pushing buttons for us-we should listen to the cat and figure out their language. I understand that now. You can't really pattern your presumptions as if you were talking to another person and you will never really understand them unless we learn what they are expressing.

the jump from koko understanding casual conversation, to understanding that the earth needs help and protection, is just too large for me to believe.

* Filming Koko's last words * "Have we got it?" "Yes, we've got it." "Good. Shoot her before her last words are something dumb like Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you"*

22:21 I used to work as a special Ed teacher of non verbal teens and one of the strategies we were trained to use to teach them to communicate was that we should make sure a variety of people work with the students when teaching communication. The fact koko could only do it around very familiar people says a lot actually.

The mistake is expecting animals to communicate the way we do. They don't need to talk in order to be intelligent or self-aware. My cat doesn't know sign language or how to talk, yet we communicate easily. She understands all the human words that are important to her, and I understand her body language, purrs, and meows. She answers to the word I assigned as her name. I answer to her calls to me, which are different than her calls to other family members. She is the master of her universe. If I sat around waiting for signs and words, I'd miss out on learning her true nature.

"Why bite" "Because mad" "Why mad" "Don't know" relatable

A joke to lighten the mood: Pavlov walks into a bar. The bell on the door rings. "Oh no," he says. "I forgot to feed my dog."

"Why is sentience our prerequisite for empathy?" I couldn't have put it any better. Brilliant work.