Chimpanzees act as 'engineers', choosing materials to make tools
77 comments
·March 25, 2025amelius
gsf_emergency_2
Here is an ape adjusting the recording camera on her own
jagged-chisel
“Adjusting” or just touching the thing she’s seen the humans touch?
gsf_emergency_2
Touche! though it might mean experimenters need to be nearly as careful with these apes as with human subjects.
upghost
> or deep learning researchers.
Priceless XD
dapperdrake
The chimps or the other living beings involved in the study?
Co-stochastic co-parrots is where it's at.
saghm
Honestly that makes sense; they _are_ a lot fuzzier than humans generally. Maybe they might figure out how to use a tool to shave?
abridges6532
Homo sapiens also make a lot of fuzzy decisions.
mmooss
Two overlooked aspect of the research:
First, an object of the research is pre-human ancestors' tool use:
> Physical evidence of early hominin perishable tools is scarce. However, it is reasonable to assume the mechanical constraints surrounding tool use and manufacture have remained somewhat constant. Using a functional framework to understand the technical capabilities of extant hominoid tool users presents a novel approach to predict the perishable tool-using capabilities of our earliest relatives.
Note that the Paleolithic, the first period of stone tools, started ~2.58 - 3.3 mya (million years ago); stone can be durable since X mya and we have lots of evidence of that. But our evolutionary line split from the chimps' line ~7 mya (though remember the 7 mya shared ancestor was not a chimpanzee; they evolved too). Before the Paleolithic, and even after it began, our ancestors at times likely used tools made from perishable materials - I cooked dinner with a wooden spoon, myself.
Also, there's the question of culture - something once thought unique to humans:
> Our findings provide insights into the technical skills associated with perishable artefact-making and raise questions about how this knowledge is learnt and culturally transmitted.
There are two ways to pass down traits: genetics, and culture. If you think culture is somehow weaker or secondary, look at the traditions or look at languages that have lasted thousands of years with no genetic basis. An advantage of the cultural method is flexibility - it can be changed today; biological evolution takes awhile.
lisper
> An advantage of the cultural method is flexibility - it can be changed today
And it can be changed deliberately. Biological evolution is inherently a random search guided by a fixed quality metric -- reproductive fitness. That is not necessarily what a sentient being wants to optimize for.
upghost
I thought this would be more relatable, like, "chimpanzee engineers found pretending to managers about estimates, chimpanzee managers found pretending to listen".
musicale
In double-blind experiments across multiple companies, chimpanzee managers were found to be largely statistically indistinguishable from incumbent (presumably human) company managers, except in areas where the chimps exhibited superior skills and performance.
yyyk
These fellows have all the juicy (chimpanzee) office gossip:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181204052813/https://www.newte...
caseyy
“Chimpanzee closes Jira ticket, with acceptance criteria met but product not functional.”
formerly_proven
“Chimpanzee ticks unmet acceptance criteria and closes ticket, knowing those with power don’t care and those who care don’t have power.”
upghost
"Chimpanzee vocalizations found to be inversely proportional to productivity and directly proportional to time spent in meetings about lack of productivity"
jcims
"Chimpanzees record their goals in four domains aligned with company values as part of a mandatory HR exercise."
Avicebron
Damn we gotta ante up, if they're taking away my title of engineer and giving it to chimps, guess I'll just find a job where they can issue me "Doctor" job title. "Doctor and Principal Cybersecurity Engineer" sounds good.
bee_rider
Really coding is more about trying to reason about overly-complex systems that you don’t fully understand for the most part. Legacy cruft with non-obvious dependencies. Poor designs. So, “code doctors” sorta works. Or “code lawyers.”
jagged-chisel
I think you just need a PhD in hand drawing and you’re set for life.
anticensor
More like a Prof.Art. in hand drawing.
null
HPsquared
First time?
oh_my_goodness
This is prior art. Everybody knows that engineers and chimpanzees share a lot of behavior patterns.
OnlyMortal
throws faeces
Nonsense!
Source: Engineer
bell-cot
Up next, a story about how ants act as 'engineers' - choosing soft-enough-to-dig ground, that is not waterlogged, to build their nests.
After that, maybe a story about plant 'engineers', growing toward the sun.
lucianbr
All the while programmers are not engineers but craftsmen, because... we don't use slide rules or something.
GeoAtreides
> A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Jane Goodall Institute in Tanzania, the University of Algarve and the University of Porto in Portugal, and the University of Leipzig,
so, i have a question; do you think the team of researchers above have no idea what they're doing? these are the people that studied and published the posted research. Do their credentials mean nothing to you?
i so despise this kind of drive-by comments, that just react to the title without reading the article, without being curious at all, empty snarkiness just for a bit of extra karma points. And in the process casting doubt and derisiveness on the scientific process and on the people that dedicate their life to extending human knowledge.
bee_rider
In the researchers’ publication, they didn’t substantiate the claim that chimpanzees are doing engineering (actually they didn’t even define what engineering is or why it would be significant if the chimpanzees were doing it). They document some interesting tool-making behavior, that the chimpanzees are somewhat picky about the material properties of the sticks they use to catch ants.
GeoAtreides
am I taking crazy pills?
the researchers' publication[1] is literally called: "Engineering skills in the manufacture of tools by wild chimpanzees"
Literally "Engineering skills".
The graphical abstract:
https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112158/asset/0e...
> "Chimpanzees show a degree of engineering acumen in the selection of plant materials for toolmaking."
> engineering acumen
[1] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)00419-5
oh_my_goodness
'they didn’t even define what engineering is or why it would be significant if the chimpanzees were doing it'
Do you mean literally "I don't understand why it would be significant if animals were doing engineering." ...?
bell-cot
I assume the researchers know perfectly well what they're doing...but "what they're doing" is much closer to "padding their publication counts" than it is to "making non-trivial scientific discoveries", or "responsible use of limited research funding". Anyone even slightly familiar with the arboreal habits of chimpanzees would realize that those alone would require them to have excellent judgement for the flexibility and strength of long, thin parts of plants. Otherwise, they'd often trust a too-weak branch, and be injured or killed in falls.
In a human world where the validity and value of science are sadly controversial, neither arguments from authority, nor 'how dare you cast doubt' objections, seem compatible with the long term well-being of science.
GeoAtreides
It's not an argument from authority fallacy if the authority is an authority in the respective argument.
'How dare you cast doubt' is pretty valid when you're an anonymous poster on HN casting doubt on tenured professors from some of the most prestigious universities in the world.
metalman
ok, here is something like that I watch my horse, choose to roll,in rub over, and generaly luxurate in bayberry shrubs, which are very aromatic,and pay by bieng reduced to kindling other surviving bayberry bushes, that were used by early european's in Canada for the wax coating of the "berrys" in candle making, are used by birds as food, the berrys ripen in late fall.....just before the song birds migrate, all of the berrys vanishing over 2 days, the high energy wax coating, providing a strong start to an arduous trip, and a free long range dispersment for the long suffering bayberrys......which I have used the self same leaves as flavoring in food everything is working a "plan" man, all part of a vast,ancient,intricate,fusion powered, network, we and all we do is just a side hussle for nature and here in Canada, the term "engineer" is legaly exclusive to the guys with the iron rings, or the few with the stripy hats
butterlover
I always say I'm only here because i'm "smarter than a monkey and cheaper than a robot" and boy has that value proposition changed recently.
gostsamo
Next trend in linkedin ads "we are looking for a 10x chimpanzee".
nurettin
Great at material science, shit flinging and attacking your face!
KineticLensman
fruits: lower, tastier, juicier. Choose two
weard_beard
The ones on the higher branches are for crows to pluck.
Maybe a few of the best will fall when a storm comes but by and large these rot in the sun.
It’s strange how much animals love fruit. All fruit.
HPsquared
Fruit loves animals. That's why it makes itself so tasty, bright-coloured and so on.
gridder
The Oriental Persimmon tastes a lot worse if the seed is not good, the good ones are less bitter and more orange than yellow. Unlike other fruits this is not related to its level of ripeness.
quinndexter
I assumed it was the fructose. (*not an animal/fruit/love expert)
xandrius
Lower and tastier, thank you!
westurner
Tool use by non-humans > Primates > Chimpanzees and bonobos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_non-humans#Chimpan...
weard_beard
Let me know when a chimp publishes in science daily. Bonus points if it’s written in feces.
xandrius
Why do we always try to use human metrics to judge other species?
oh_my_goodness
If we don't use some metric we're no better than animals.
weard_beard
We aren’t. We’re worse. We’re animals with nuclear bombs. You can say it it doesn’t matter but you can’t tell me it’s not true.
Yes but they make a lot of fuzzy decisions, so they are better compared with e.g. alchemists or deep learning researchers.