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On April 22, "Earth Day," a special occasion that calls for the protection of the planet, Baidu and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) jointly launched the world's first platform utilizing artificial intelligence technology to combat illegal wildlife product trade—the "Endangered Species AI Guardian." Based on Baidu's deep learning platform, PaddlePaddle, the platform uses image recognition models to identify images of endangered wildlife products, thereby preventing illegal wildlife trade through online channels.
Based on a foundational dataset of approximately 100,000animal product images provided by IFAW, the PaddlePaddle team underwent five months of repeated testing, labeling, and optimization. In the first phase, images related to three species—elephants, tigers, and pangolins—were incorporated into the "Endangered Species AI Guardian" recognition scope, achieving an accuracy rate of about 75%, providing practical assistance to IFAW. To date, it has helped screen nearly 250,000 images, accurately identifying 3,348 images of targeted wildlife products and tracing back to 807illegal trade advertisements.
While artificial intelligence has already been practiced and applied in wildlife identification in society, the forms, colors, and lusters of processed wildlife products vary greatly. The limited amount of raw data available for machine learning also poses significant challenges to system development and accuracy improvement.
At the same time, in recent years, some illegal sellers have increasingly used forms such as images, short videos, and live streaming platforms that are not easily monitored by traditional methods to publish illegal information. In a 2019 study of one month's information release status on a certain online platform, IFAW found that out of 6,396 illegal wildlife advertisements, 49% included product images but no key information about the items being sold in the text.
For example, in IFAW's research on online wildlife crime, although a large number of online wildlife product advertisements were found, identifying wildlife products among them was not only inaccurate but also time-consuming.
To solve this problem, the "Endangered Species AI Guardian," leveraging the PaddlePaddle industrial application-level image classification suite PaddleClas, customized a dedicated image recognition model and this model was made available through the PaddlePaddle pre-trained model application tool PaddleHub. The PaddlePaddle team will continue to collaborate with IFAW to update and iterate the model, striving to provide better performance and a broader range of recognition categories. The PaddlePaddle image classification suite boasts a rich model library, including23 series of classification networks and 117 pre-trained models with performance evaluations. The ImageNet 1k pre-trained model obtained through PaddleClas and its industry-leading SSLD knowledge distillation scheme was trained on IFAW's dataset of 100,000 wildlife product images. The model was finally deployed and provided online prediction services through PaddlePaddle's Paddle Serving. Meanwhile, wildlife product recognition will be offered as one of the image recognition capabilities on Baidu AI open platform for free.
Baidu Group Vice President Wu Tian said, "'Technology for Good' is the principle upheld by Baidu people. It is our responsibility touse the power of technology to protect wildlife and the planet. The PaddlePaddle team will continue their efforts. The recognition model developedthis time will be open-sourced on the PaddlePaddle platform. As an AI foundational software platform, PaddlePaddle supports the innovative work of developers and researchers, helping make the 'Endangered Species AI Guardian' smarter."
This year's Earth Day theme is "Cherish the Earth, Harmony between Man and Nature," and combating illegal wildlife trade is naturally an important topic. INTERPOL has pointed out that illegal wildlife trade, both in scale and profit, is the world's third-largest illegal trade, second only to drugs and arms.
The birth of the "Endangered Species AI Guardian' is timely. Through this platform, IFAW can more efficiently study the new characteristics of online wildlife crime, and the relevant information will be promptly fed back to the respective online platforms for handling or reportedt o law enforcement for investigation.
IFAW Asia Regional Director Grace Gabriel said," Currently, each of us is experiencing the global pandemic crisis. On Earth Day, the application of high-tech networks such as the 'Endangered Species AI Guardian' empowers us with greater ability to combat illegal wildlife trade, giving us more confidence to eliminate the threat of illegal trade to wildlife. We hope the whole society will take action, with everyone becoming a guardian of wildlife protection."
In addition to the images of elephant, tiger, and pangolin products, more wildlife products under severe threat from illegal online trade will be included in the "Endangered Species AI Guardian" in the future, with the application scenarios expected to extend to video, livestreaming, and other formats.
In addition to the cooperation with IFAW, PaddlePaddle has opened the technical capabilities of the "Endangered Species AI Guardian" to the public, hoping to unite more public welfare organizations to use technological means to combat illegal wildlife trade and maximize the role of technology in wildlife protection.
Baidu Chairman and CEO Robin Li once said, "Do Better, Technology for Better, this is the meaning of technology's existence, and it is also the goal every Baidu person tirelessly pursues day and night." In the future, Baidu will continue to explore how to use AI capabilities to integrate and analyze various forms of communication, including text, images, and videos, as well as associated information from different online platforms, to more effectively support wildlife protection work and take concrete actions to practice "Technology for Better."
