(Btw everything I write here about orcas also applies to a slightly lesser extent to pilot whales (especially long finned ones)[1].)

(I'm very very far from an orca expert - basically everything I know about them I learned today.)

I always thought that bigger animals might have bigger brains than humans but not actually more neurons in their neocortex (like elephants) and that number of neurons in the neocortex or prefrontal cortex might be a good inter-species indicator of intelligence for mammalian brains.[2] Yesterday I discovered that orcas actually have 2.05 times as many neurons in their neocortex[3] than humans from this wikipedia list. Interestingly though, given my pretty bad model of how intelligent some species are, the "number of neurons in neocortex" still seems like a proxy that doesn't perform too badly on the wikipedia list.

Orca brains are not just larger but also more strongly folded.

Orcas [...]

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 1 image which was described by AI.

---

First published:
November 4th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gRShuaWgKjizM4xPM/could-orcas-be-trained-to-be-smarter-than-humans

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Could orcas be (trained to be) smarter than humans?” by Towards_Keeperhood

LessWrong (30+ Karma)