Human-machine partnership for conservation: AI and humans combatting extinction together

Abstract

We are losing the planet’s biodiversity at an unprecedented rate and in many cases, we do not even have the basic numbers. Photographs, taken by field scientists, tourists, citizen scientists, automated cameras, incidental photographers, and collected from social media are the most abundant source of data on wildlife today. Data science and machine learning can turn massive collections of images into high resolution information database about wildlife, enabling scientific inquiry, conservation, and policy decisions. Machine learning and artificial intelligence have advanced significantly over the past decade. Nonetheless, to successfully address biodiversity crisis and other societal challenges, we need the complementary capabilities of both humans and machines, in partnership. A unique example of a human-machine partnership for conservation is demonstrated in a deployed system, Wildbook, a project of tech for conservation non-profit Wild Me, which uses machine learning and computer vision to recognize individual animals in photographs, supporting management of more than 60 species across the planet.

Bio

Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf is a Professor of Computer Science Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University, where she is also the Director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute. As a computational ecologist, her research is at the unique intersection of computer science, wildlife biology, and social sciences. She creates computational solutions to address questions such as how environmental factors affect the behavior of social animals (humans included). Berger-Wolf is also a director and co-founder of the conservation software non-profit Wild Me, home of the Wildbook project, which brings together computer vision, crowdsourcing, and conservation. It has been featured in media, including Forbes, The New York Times, CNN, National Geographic, and most recently The Economist. Berger-Wolf has given hundreds of talks about her work, including at TEDx and UN/UNESCO AI for the Planet. Prior to coming to OSU in January 2020, Berger-Wolf was at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Berger-Wolf holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has received numerous awards for her research and mentoring, including University of Illinois Scholar, UIC Distinguished Researcher of the Year, US National Science Foundation CAREER, Association for Women in Science Chicago Innovator, and the UIC Mentor of the Year.