Palmer Luckey tells Joe Rogan an African grey parrot's tiny brain could change how we think about AI Joe Rogan: Are you familiar with Alex the African grey parrot? African greys are probably the smartest bird, right up there with crows and ravens. They can talk, they can reason. Palmer Luckey: Alex was a uniquely smart one. African greys are usually not kept in captivity because they're a handful, and they're a handful because they're so intelligent. They need intellectual stimulation, and most people don't have the time. They get depressed and self-harm. Palmer: Alex had a vocabulary and understood grammar. I think he's the only animal who asked an existential question, right before he died: "What's happening and where am I going?" Palmer: And he has a tiny bird brain. People who've lost huge chunks of their brain seem to get by. Parrots like Alex suggest you can do a lot with very little brain if it's oriented correctly. Trainer: What's different? What number is grey? Alex: Four. Trainer: Very good. Good boy. Palmer: That's intelligence on par with a human toddler, with far less brain tissue. Building a thinking system from scratch with AI will help us understand how other systems think. There's never been an economic motive to dig into how the brain fundamentally works. Google's never funded it to the tune of tens of billions. Meta's never funded it to the tune of hundreds of billions. Nobody paid to understand the brain until there was money in building a copy of it.