Orwell's nightmare? Facial recognition for animals promises a farmyard revolution
Orwell's
nightmare? Facial recognition for animals promises a farmyard revolution
Anna Fifield, The Washington Post Published 8:56 am EDT,
Monday, August 24, 2020
YECHANG, China - There are many challenges to
applying facial recognition technology to animals: Pigs don't have distinguishing
features and cows often want to lick the cameras. But there is an advantage:
Farmyard inhabitants tend not to complain about impingements on their civil
liberties.
Having mastered facial recognition for humans to
an alarmingly precise degree, even picking out wanted criminals from huge
crowds, Chinese tech whizzes are turning their attention to furrier faces.
"We've been using it for sheep, pigs and
cows," said Zhao Jinshi, who studied at Cornell University and founded
Beijing Unitrace Tech, a company developing software for the agriculture
industry.
"For pigs, it's more difficult because pigs
all look the same, but dairy cows are a bit special because they are black and
white and have different shapes," Zhao said as he checked on the technology
installed in a pilot project here at a farm in Hebei province, outside Beijing.
China has led the world in developing facial
recognition capabilities. There are almost 630 million facial recognition
cameras in use in the country, for security purposes as well as for everyday
conveniences like entering train stations and paying for goods in stores.
But authorities also use the technology for
sinister means, such as monitoring political dissidents and ethnic minorities.
One Chinese AI company, Megvii, which has been
blacklisted by the Department of Commerce for alleged involvement in the
Chinese government's repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang, is applying its
technology to a program to recognize dogs by their nose prints. Other tech
companies around the world have had a go at identifying chimpanzees, dolphins,
horses and lions, with varying degrees of success.
Chinese entrepreneurs see an opportunity to
apply this know-how to agriculture as farms become bigger and more
commercialized, and as the rural population ages, limiting the number of people
able to do manual work.
For humans, facial recognition works by
measuring distances between features like eyebrows and lips. But for cows, the
software detects patterns and shapes on the animals' faces and hides. With 50
photographs from different angles, Zhao's software can tell a Daisy from a
Bessie.
Farmers load information such as health
conditions, insemination dates and pregnancy test results into the system,
which syncs up with cameras installed above troughs and milking stations. If
everything works, farmers can amass valuable data without lifting a finger.
"We can monitor how long the cow is
drinking for, how much it's eating, how many times a day it visits the
trough," Zhao said as the cows walked in a row from their outdoor pen
toward the milking shed.
Signs of illness or unusual behavior can be
detected using artificial intelligence and treated quickly by a human, rather
than relying on farmers to inspect the herd for potential problems.
"This system is very powerful and it will
definitely make our work easier," said He Ye, the manager of the farm in
Hebei province. The farm has to buy the cameras, but Zhao's company has been
providing the technology for free while it irons out the wrinkles.
"When the weigh scale is installed, I will
be able to monitor them in real time," he said. If a cow shows symptoms of
illness or any other problem, He gets an alert on his phone.
This kind of information for each animal used to
be collected from electronic tags punched through their ears or worn around
their ankles. The problem was that the cows were always trying to remove them -
and often succeeding.
It's a challenge to install the cameras in a
farmyard, where there is water and mud everywhere. But even more challenging is
the fact that cows are very curious, said Zhao.
"If you make a little change, they will
notice it. If you put up a sign or change anything at all, the cow will
notice," he said. Then the cow will often try to nuzzle or lick or otherwise
check out the new item.
This initiative fits nicely with the Hebei
provincial government's goal to double milk production within two years and
improve safety.
"The milk industry has completely
changed," said He, the farmer. "The standards for milk production
increased so much - it's become must more rigorous, with requirements about
sterilization and other sanitation regulations."
Long before the coronavirus - which scientists
believe began in bats then jumped through an intermediate host, probably pangolins,
to humans working in an exotic meat market - China was known for low food
standards and repeated scandals, such as melamine added to baby formula.
Millions of pigs were culled during a swine flu
outbreak over the past year, and there have been several cases of bubonic
plague, linked to marmots.
China is now paying more attention to food
hygiene. With the spread of the coronavirus, China's government has banned the
trade and consumption of wildlife such as civet cats and bamboo rats.
"Intelligent farming" is beginning to
change how the agricultural sector operates, and China's technological giants
are getting in on the action, focusing on pork, China's favorite meat.
Alibaba, the tech behemoth, has been developing
voice recognition technology for pigs to try to detect if the animals are in
pain or trouble, while online retailer JD.com has been working on an
A.I.-powered system to develop feeding plans for individual pigs.
This kind of technology could be useful on
farms, said Gosia Zobel, a scientist with AgResearch, a New Zealand government
institute.
"There are obvious constraints - like the
technology working properly on farm, appropriately validating what is being
monitored, and data handling - but these challenges are worth tackling if they
bring animal welfare benefits," she said.
While farmers in other parts of the world are
increasingly turning to technology to offset aging populations and labor
shortages, China is mainly motivated to produce more domestically, said Salah
Sukkarieh, a professor of field robotics at the University of Sydney.
"These technological advances are driving
individual plants to get the most out of each square meter of land, to increase
yields and reduce variability," Sukkarieh said. "In China, this is
mostly about food security and growing more on its national land."
China feeds 22 percent of the world's population
with only 10 percent of the world's arable land. That creates extra incentive
for China to improve food standards and production, including through the use
of advanced technology.
If only those cows would leave the cameras alone
and the pigs would develop more distinguishing features.
The Washington Post's Wang Yuan contributed to
this report.
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