AI springs into action in surprising places

A park ranger treads carefully through the trees, stopping to listen for signs of the poacher he's tailing. Killed for skins, medicine and trophy hunting, the worldwide population of tigers has been reduced to near-extinction at about 3,200. The scale of destruction is increasing, and it will take a three-pronged approach to battle the corruption and financial incentives driving the illegal trade: tackling the source, transmission and demand for wild animal products. Supply could be dealt with by park rangers catching the poachers before they attack, but finding a single poacher in thousands of square kilometers can be almost impossible, and in the poorest areas, resources are so constrained that poachers are not being intercepted at all. Artificial intelligence and game theory are the surprising elements in the arsenal of weapons used to combat this problem.