Giant pandas are instantly recognizable as a species, but their uniform black and white markings make them pretty anonymous as individuals. At least, to human eyes. Not so for synthetic intelligence, as researchers in China have evolved an AI-powered facial reputation app to identify precise pandas. The app is available on the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China. Visitors will soon use it to identify any of the facility’s dozens of captive giant pandas and discover more facts about them. The app’s creators additionally wish the software could be a boon for scientists, who can use it to song the bears inside the wild.
“The app and database will assist us in acquiring extra precise and well-rounded records at the populace, distribution, a long time, gender ratio, start and deaths of wild pandas, who stay in deep mountains and are hard to track,” Chen Peng, a researcher who co-authored the paper Giant Panda Face Recognition Using Small Database, informed Xinhua News.
“It will without a doubt assist us in improving efficiency and effectiveness in conservation and control of the animals,” stated Chen.
