New artificial intelligence system can tell if a sheep is in pain

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have created an artificial intelligence system that uses five different facial expressions to diagnose if a sheep is in pain. It can also estimate the severity of the pain. The research, which is being presented at a conference in Washington D.C. on Thursday, could improve sheep well-being -- and help in the early diagnosis and treatment of painful conditions in other animals like horses and rats. The new system, which uses machine learning, can detect different parts of a sheep's face and compares them with the standardized measurement tool developed by veterinarians for diagnosing pain. The researchers trained their model using about 500 photographs of sheep.