Ai, Japanese chimpanzee who counted and painted dies at 49

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.

There’s no evidence that KoKo ever communicated a word and had understanding of what the word meant outside of basic Pavlovian associations.

Is it?

Afaik they didn’t actually sign anything other than random words, an “food” every second word or so..

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.

We've not made much progress on this front since Plato's featherless biped.

I've found another[1] on a blog post[2], captioned as follows:

  Frontispiece 1. Art drawn by chimpanzee Ai using sharpies(Saito, 2008)[p.19]
  Frontispiece 2. Art styles of 4 adult chimpanzees(Saito, 2008). Guess which one was by Ai[p.20]

There's also magazine excerpt[3] on a page on relevant Kyoto University research center comparing an inpainting task done by a chimpanzee and a human child of 3 years old, showing that chimpanzees can only recognize and trace existing patterns, whereas kids go and complete the face with eyes, nose and mouth.

  1: https://kyoikugenri2019.up.seesaa.net/image/2017-10-132018.11.52.jpg
  2: https://kyoikugenri2019.seesaa.net/article/471281414.html
  3: https://www.wrc.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ja/publications/AyaSaito/kagaku084.html

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.

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.

Hey, she did her best.

It’s hardly distinguishable from modern art though!

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.