I Taught an Octopus Piano (it Took 6 Months) [video]

Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago

weinzierl

43 points

14 comments

youtube.comResearchstory

calmmixed

Debate

60/100

Animal CognitionOctopus IntelligenceMusic and Animals

Key topics

Animal Cognition

Octopus Intelligence

Music and Animals

A YouTube video shows an octopus being trained to play a piano, sparking discussion about cephalopod intelligence and the ethics of using animals for entertainment.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

Discussion Activity

Moderate engagement

First comment

48m

Peak period

1-2h

Avg / period

3.5

Comment distribution14 data points

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Based on 14 loaded comments

Key moments

01Story posted
Nov 8, 2025 at 4:46 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 01
02First comment
Nov 8, 2025 at 5:34 PM EST
48m after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
7 comments in 1-2h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03
04Latest activity
Nov 8, 2025 at 8:12 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04

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Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (14 comments)

Showing 14 comments

6stringmerc

about 2 months ago

1 reply

Cephalopods are the most highly evolved species living on planet Earth. They survived the first surface extinction. They'll survive the second. No wonder they prefer staying down there. Disclaimer: I had a wild dream in jail one night that made me reconsider some notions about...

burnt-resistor

about 2 months ago

Surface oceans will disappear in about a billion years. More life must go pretty deep underground to survive longer.

eth0up

about 2 months ago

2 replies

I've seen humans eat these entities parboiled and squirming.

It's a shaft in the existential backside that this is the best infinity can offer. Are we not embued in it?

What a depraved world that is ours. Given the minds we have to understand yet trading them for trivial vittles.

A tongue our lord and eyes, to taste our way through this cosmic mystery.

A three-year-old... Perhaps exaggeration. It hardly makes a difference. A 0.3 year-old would do, if one wished to be disturbed.

I have always opposed cannibalism but wonder if I've been wrong. We probably should begin the final feast soon, and really clean our plates.

do_not_redeem

about 2 months ago

1 reply

Nature is cruel. Every living thing wants energy for itself, but there's only so much to go around. The leaves cry out in ultrasonic frequencies as they're harvested, and then we add insult to injury by drowning them in salad dressing before we chomp away blissfully. You want to live, just like they did. So you eat. If only the universe had infinite resources to go around, but instead the march of entropy leaves us fighting over an ever shrinking pie.

DennisP

about 2 months ago

1 reply

Yes, but for myself I'd rather eat things that aren't as smart as octopuses.

And as long as the sun keeps shining, the pie stays pretty constant on Earth. The pie is shrinking for everybody else only because humans keep taking more of it.

pcthrowaway

about 2 months ago

Pigs are quite intelligent too.

But our modern life is built on the corpses of many, including children, and that pile keeps growing

nurettin

about 2 months ago

Their only fault: being so gosh darn tasty.

anigbrowl

about 2 months ago

2 replies

Clickbait nonsense - one of those 'I did [impractical thing], watch what happens!' channels. He buys an octopus at a fish market and trains it to pull on levers styled as piano keys to get a food reward. By preselecting the tuning of the keys, eventually he gets it to play a few random notes in the same scale as his guitar noodling.

causal

about 2 months ago

2 replies

What did you expect, complete arpeggios and site-reading Mozart? In six months he taught a wild animal to go from nothing to understanding how to interact with a complex instrument, and do so with increasing sequences in response to a reward. That's really cool. Your expectations might be a tad high.

anigbrowl

about 2 months ago

1 reply

Octopi are already famous for liking to play with things, and it had little else to do in its undersized tank. This is cat walking on piano keys stuff, not increasing sequences. I hope he released the octopus back into the wild after he got bored with it.

paraknight

about 2 months ago

FYI: octopi is not the correct plural for octopus.

Rendello

about 2 months ago

Plus from a hacker perspective, there was clearly a lot of work put into those keyboards. He skimmed over it because it's for a different audience.

qingcharles

about 2 months ago

It's called entertainment. I was entertained.

burnt-resistor

about 2 months ago

Ironically, I saw this 3 days ago. Was just watching the tuning fork piano build video. https://youtu.be/VD7xivhWYQ8