Erudite Australopithecus

Erudite Australopithecus

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Someone commissioned me for a set of Discord server icons based on various esoteric names, like “Erudite Australopithecus.”

Australopithecus are a genus of extinct hominids closely related to humans, whose first remains were documented in 1925 in South Africa.

The infinite monkey theorem states that given an infinite amount of time, a monkey in front of a typewriter will eventually type all the works of Shakespeare.

Obviously, monkeys are not immortal, so I propose that we start a multi-generational monkey-typing experiment where we keep raising the same monkey family to type on this one typewriter, each continuing the work of the previous monkey. How many generations of monkey will it take before a monkey types something that is recognizably the text of Hamlet?

Further confounding the issue is that, over many generations, the monkeys might evolve into beings that are successively more capable of typing Hamlet. But at that point, are they still monkeys anymore?