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AI learns to recognise objects with the efficiency of a newborn chick

Shortly after hatching, chicks quickly learn to recognise moving objects with only a few examples – now AIs can do the same

By Jeremy Hsu

1 January 2024

Researchers tested the vision abilities of AI in a virtual environment that mimicked a test for baby chicks

Lalit Pandey, Samantha M. W. Wood, Justin N.Wood

Artificial intelligence may be able to learn from minimal amounts of data as efficiently as newborn chicks.

Just after hatching, many birds learn to identify and follow the first moving object they encounter – a process called imprinting, which can offer protection in the wild as it helps them stay near a parent. It doesn’t take much visual information for a bird to learn to prefer one object and follow it. Researchers wanted…

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