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Diane Stoppard Photography
Kiwi’s are often tempted by insects that stick to lures inside a trap, but AI has been trained to spot a Kiwi’s beak and not trigger.
Newsable is brought to you by BNZ.
The news is full of stories about the downsides of artificial intelligence. It’s listening to us through our phones, it’s tracking where we go, and it’s even got the nerve to replace us at work.
But, there is some good news too. AI is being used in traps in our native bush, so the traps only trigger on animals it knows are a pest.
Helen Blackie, Product Lead at Environmental Consultancy firm Boffa Miskell, spoke to Newsable this morning about how the traps were taught to identify friend from foe.
Below is an edited transcript of the interview, which you can listen to in full here.
Supplied
Field trials are currently underway in New Zealand, and the idea has garnered attention from Australia and the UK too.
How did you train the AI to detect the good from the bad?
The secret with AI is you’ve got to use really good data to be able to guarntee a high level of accuracy. So, we had to use, for example, 20,000 interactions of stoats to train the AI to be highly accurate at detecting stoats.
And then we did the same for species like rats and possums. And then your kea, your kaka, kiwi beaks, any of those animals that might also go into the trap.
And actually the other thing is human hands. Small children, human hands, pet dogs, the other things that we worry about when we use traps in the native bush.
How can we be confident we won’t end up the nightmarish scenario where we open a trap to find a kiwi inside?
So kiwi are actually a great example, because what happens is we’ve got to put lures in these traps that last for a long period of time. Those lures attract little insects and kiwi love to stick their beaks in to get at the insects that are attracted to the lures.
So an issue in the past has been that kiwi beaks may activate a trap, and they may end up with really damaged beaks.
But this trap is able to say, that’s a kiwi beak, definitely don’t trigger on that, meaning there’s no risk to the kiwi from having the trap out in the environment.
Newsable is Stuff’s daily news podcast, wrapping up what’s worth talking about in a short package every weekday morning. You can find new episodes and more detail on our stories here or in our newsletter. Make sure to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts and across Instagram and TikTok.
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