It is the year 2050. The world population is roughly two billion people, just 25% of what it was thirty years ago. Back in 2018, the United Nations had predicted that we were approaching the point of no return on climate change. Unfortunately, by the time humanity took serious, meaningful action to the threat, it was too late. The Earth's temperature spiked destroying agriculture, triggering massive worldwide flooding, creating incredible natural disasters, and forcing people to migrate north… or underground.

Inspired by listening one of the episodes of the podcast Data Crunch by Vault Analytics, on the topic: "Drones and AI", it came to my mind how drones are being used nowadays, not only as a hobby but for commercial purposes, too. Drones are getting popular in the community and different industries such as film and photography. Game of Thrones TV show pays a lot of money to get amazing shots! You can get more interesting photos using a drone than a traditional camera. Just imagine the unique perspective from a drone's view, they definitely offer impressive and incredible shots.

Last June, a simple question changed my life: "Hey Bryn, what do you know about whales?" Of course like most people, my answer was "Not much," but that marked the beginning of an important project to help track the health of whale populations by using machine learning to analyze video from drones. Parley for the Oceans introduced me and my colleagues Ted Willke and Javier Turek to Dr. Iain Kerr of Ocean Alliance, and we started talking about how machine learning could help make marine biologists' lives easier and help protect the whales, using the video from Dr. Kerr's SnotBot drones. Dr. Kerr started the SnotBot program because in the not-so-distant past, when people wanted to understand the health of a whale, or get its DNA, the only way to do this was to shoot it with a crossbow with a specially prepared bolt with a string on it, that would only go a couple of inches into the (remember, bus-size) body. The bolt would then be reeled in and the sample could be extracted from it.

Intel has begun pushing the boundaries of wildlife research by using artificial intelligence-based drones for observation. Drones have been used to unobtrusively gather video and other data on wildlife, from polar bears to whales. In honor of World Animal Day, Intel said its AI-based drones have been used in two wildlife research expeditions. Intel collaborated with a wildlife photographer on one expedition and teamed up with conservationist and nonprofit organizations Parley for the Oceans and Ocean Alliance on another trip. The drones help scientists explore nature in safer, more efficient, and less invasive ways.