AI face recognition software system currently works for wild chimpanzees too
Artificial intelligence that detects, tracks and recognizes chimpanzees could make studying animals in the wild more efficient. Arsha Nagrani at the University of Oxford and her colleagues have developed an identity verification AI which will discover and determine the individual chimpanzees captured in video footage recorded within the wild. The algorithm could help researchers and wildlife conservationists study the complex behaviors of chimpanzees and other primates more efficiently.
The team trained the AI on 50 hours of archival footage spanning 14 years of chimpanzees in Bossou in Guinea, West Africa. The footage of twenty-three chimpanzees, with estimated ages ranging from newborn to 57 years, yielded 10 million facial images. The algorithm learned to continuously track and recognize individuals from raw video footage, says Nagrani.
It performed well even in low light and poor-quality images and worked for images in which the chimps weren’t looking towards the camera. The AI had Associated in Nursing overall identity recognition accuracy of ninety-two and properly-known Associate in Nursing animal’s sex ninety-six of the time.
To compare its ability with that of humans, the team then selected 100 random still images and tasked the AI as well as people with identifying the chimpanzee in each image.
The formula achieved Associate in Nursing accuracy of eighty-four, taking 30 seconds to complete the task. In comparison, researchers who were experienced in recognizing the chimps took 55 minutes and had an average accuracy of 42 percent.
The formula can permit researchers to additional with efficiency examine however behavior and social interactions modification over years and generations of animals, says collaborator Daniel Schofield. “You will begin to make up a social network,” he says.
By quantifying the interactions between people, they were ready to track changes in community structure over time. Though the team trained the AI on chimpanzees, it could be applied to other primates, says Nagrani.
