Pigs as gamers? It’s not that far off it seems.
A group of researchers and artists are working on Playing with Pigs, a gaming project meant to explore the intelligence and play of pigs while relieving their boredom.
In Playing with Pigs, a gamer uses an iPhone or iPad to maneuver a ball of light that shows up on a wall-sized touch screen in a pig enclosure. The researches say they discovered early on that pigs are attracted to light, especially moving light.
The goal of one game is to move the light in concert with a pig’s snout to a marker on the wall in a set time. Another game has players following a pig’s snout with their finger.
Some of this seems born of the European Union’s requirement that farmed pigs have access to enrichment materials in order for them to perform their natural behaviors, reduce boredom and tail biting.
This is a bit like the program being developed to give Orangutan iPads to play with and use to game against people.
It bothers me more than a little bit that this is for pigs destined for the butcher. I realize that makes me a massive hypocrite.
