3 octopuses sat in a tank and did something with a mirror that no creature without a backbone has ever done, and the way their brains solved it is now drawing fresh attention from AI engineers working on spatial navigation

It started as a simple question in a university lab: could an octopus look at a mirror and figure out where something outside its direct line of sight was hiding? The answer has upended a rule scientists thought was ironclad. And it has engineers who build AI navigation systems paying very close attention. A familiar ... Read more