Scientists in New Zealand developed a smart trap using artificial intelligence to help eradicate pests. The trap can detect pests — such as rats, ferrets, and weasels — with impressive accuracy, targeting the pests while sparing protected species.
Critter Solutions, a technology research and development company, developed the AI traps using machine learning, effectively "teaching" the tech which animals to eradicate by feeding it images of target and non-target wildlife. Led by Dr. Helen Blackie, the team calls the tech a "world-first in smart self-resetting kill-traps."
"If an animal comes up to the trap, it's able to think for itself and decide what animal that is," Dr. Blackie told Radio New Zealand. "If [the trap] recognizes it as a pest species, it triggers the trap, and if it recognizes it as being a non-target species or a native species, it's able to make sure it doesn't activate itself."
Dr. Blackie told Radio New Zealand that traditional traps tried to deter "non-target species" by making traps hard to get into. But that would also make the traps less inviting for target species — and the tactic wasn't foolproof, as the traps sometimes caught protected species anyway.
Critter Solutions wanted to create "open and inviting" traps that attract animals better, and the company wanted to use tech to identify pests rather than relying on the trap's construction.
The traps, which are also being used to kill feral cats in Australia, are surprisingly accurate. Dr. Blackie told Radio New Zealand the tech is advanced enough to filter out possums — a protected species — from feral cats.
"If you've got a black possum and a black cat, you've got to make sure you've got really good quality data fed into the AI models to account for those circumstances," Dr. Blackie told Radio New Zealand.
Critter Solutions hopes the smart trap will help New Zealand achieve its ambitious goal of being "predator-free" by 2050. The country hopes to eradicate pests such as rats, stoats, ferrets, and weasels by 2050 to help protect the country's native wildlife.
While these smart traps are an example of how AI can positively impact the planet, there are still environmental concerns with the growing popularity of smart tech. AI data centers use a massive amount of electricity, which is often powered by dirty fuel. Data centers also churn through billions of gallons of freshwater to cool equipment.
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The demands of AI are expected to contribute to the doubling of data center power consumption from 2022 to 2026.
"There is still much we don't know about the environmental impact of AI, but some of the data we do have is concerning," Golestan Radwan, chief digital officer of the United Nations Environment Programme, said on the UNEP website. "We need to make sure the net effect of AI on the planet is positive before we deploy the technology at scale."
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