Elephants Under Attack Have An Unlikely Ally: Artificial Intelligence

There are two kinds of elephants in Africa: the forest elephant and the savanna elephant (above), photographed this past spring in Liwonde National Park in Malawi. The Great Elephant Census found that Africa's savanna elephant population decreased by about a third in the seven years between 2007 and 2014. There are two kinds of elephants in Africa: the forest elephant and the savanna elephant (above), photographed this past spring in Liwonde National Park in Malawi. The Great Elephant Census found that Africa's savanna elephant population decreased by about a third in the seven years between 2007 and 2014. A few years ago, Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, published the results of something called the Great Elephant Census, which counted all the savanna elephants in Africa. What it found rocked the conservation world: In the seven years between 2007 and 2014, Africa's savanna elephant population decreased by about a third and was on track to disappear completely from some African countries in as few as 10 years. To reverse that trend, researchers landed on a technology that is rewriting the rules for everything from our household appliances to our cars: artificial intelligence. AI's ability to find patterns in enormous volumes of information is demystifying not just elephant behavior but human behavior -- specifically poacher behavior -- too.