Els and Shrader AI elephant gate

In our study, we tested a previously trained AI system’s ability to accurately identify elephants and thus open gates to allow for elephant movement between areas. To do this, we conducted experiments with semi-tame elephants, other herbivores (blue wildebeest, ostrich), and non-elephant objects (stuffed elephant toys, vehicles, vehicles covered with a grey car cover- with and without artificial ears). What we found was that the AI system could correctly identify the elephants (both lone individuals and groups) and could correctly identify the vehicles and stuffed toys as not being elephants. However, it was unable to determine whether the vehicles covered with the grey car cover (both with and without ears), and wildebeest were elephants or not. Moreover, it consistently misidentified ostrich as elephants.