Wildlife security

 

Rangers Use Artificial Intelligence to Fight Poachers

Poachers kill an estimated 96 African elephants every day, causing conservationists to warn that the iconic animals could disappear in our lifetime if the tide doesn't turn. But now scientists hope a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool could help wildlife officials get a leg up against poachers.

PAWS, which stands for Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security, is a newly developed AI that takes data about previous poaching activities and outputs routes for patrols based on where poaching is likely to occur. These routes are also randomized to keep poachers from learning patrol patterns. Using machine learning, a branch of AI, PAWS can continually find new insights as more data is added.

Milind Tambe, a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, became interested in working on an AI solution for poaching after he went to a Global Tiger Initiative conference, where he says his eyes were opened to the threat of extinction for animals like the tiger and elephant.