AI versus the wasps
Jul. 20th, 2025 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeIn the summer, it’s harder to feed the “porch cats” because of the yellow-jackets, who are much too interested in the wet foods I give them twice a day (and then the ants like the dry food). This year, though, maybe there’s a nearby nest, because there are many more yellow-jackets than usual. Samantha and her family do not understand or agree with the idea that their 6 pm meal has been postponed until around 9 pm, when the wasps have gone home, and they follow me up and down the driveway, looking at me like I’ve gone derelict or worse.
So J asked Claude (the Anthropic AI) how to make a yellow-jacket trap, and then he constructed one. It’s a plastic milk jug with the opening inverted, so they can go down into the base, where there’s a mixture of fruit juice and dish soap. The idea is that the fruit juice attracts them, but when they drink it the dish soap will make it impossible for them to fly back out. It’s quite harmless to cats, of course, so after he built it I set it on the porch.
The wasps totally ignored it (although some ants made their way inside). J then asked Claude why, and it turns out that yellow-jackets aren’t interested in fruit until late summer; at this point they still prefer meat. Claude hadn’t bothered taking the date of the query into account. I guess I’ll have to put some wet cat food inside and hope it still appeals to them when it’s fruit-scented.
So J asked Claude (the Anthropic AI) how to make a yellow-jacket trap, and then he constructed one. It’s a plastic milk jug with the opening inverted, so they can go down into the base, where there’s a mixture of fruit juice and dish soap. The idea is that the fruit juice attracts them, but when they drink it the dish soap will make it impossible for them to fly back out. It’s quite harmless to cats, of course, so after he built it I set it on the porch.
The wasps totally ignored it (although some ants made their way inside). J then asked Claude why, and it turns out that yellow-jackets aren’t interested in fruit until late summer; at this point they still prefer meat. Claude hadn’t bothered taking the date of the query into account. I guess I’ll have to put some wet cat food inside and hope it still appeals to them when it’s fruit-scented.