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Teaching AI to find forced labour camps
ASIF HASSAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
NEWS & TECHNOLOGY the kilns appear as round and usually pale structures, which makes them stand out in satellite images. They’re often clustered together, with several appearing in the same photo. So far, volunteers have identified over 4000 potential slavery sites across 400 satellite images taken via Google Earth. Once these have been checked several times by volunteers, Bales plans to use these images to teach the machine learning algorithm what kilns look like, so that it can learn to recognise them in images automatically. –Brick kilns can be slavery sites– Bales is also developing a similar approach for identifying open-pit mines in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are also often sites of forced labour. But he thinks his machine sites. There are an estimated learning algorithms might have 5 million people working in brick a trickier time categorising openkilns in South Asia, and of those pit mines, which often look like nearly 70 per cent are thought to big holes in the ground and can be be working there under duress – harder to spot. often to pay off financial debts. “A lot of slavery is visible from However, no one is quite space,” says Bales. But image sure how many of these kilns recognition techniques could there are in the so-called “Brick “If computers can Belt”, a region that stretches across parts of Pakistan, India and pinpoint slavery sites, the coordinates can be passed Nepal. Some estimates put the on for investigation” figure at 20,000, but it may be as high as 50,000. Bales is hoping that his also help track down slavery that’s machine learning approach will invisible to satellites. TraffickCam, produce a more accurate figure a database set up by the social and help organisations on the action group Exchange Initiative, ground know where to direct their uses image recognition to identify anti-slavery efforts. victims of sex trafficking. It’s great to have a tool for Travellers to hotels are asked to identifying possible forced upload an image of the inside of labour sites, says Sasha Jesperson their hotel room, and these can at St Mary’s University in London. then be compared with photos of But it is just a start – to really find the sex workers posted online by out how many people are being the sex traffickers. enslaved in the brick kiln industry, Because such photos are investigators still need to visit frequently taken in hotel rooms, every site and work out exactly investigators may be able use the what’s going on there, she says. TraffickCam database to pinpoint Kilns are often hidden in the location of a particular patches of cleared forest, which photograph and rescue trafficked makes them hard to detect on the individuals. More than 150,000 ground. But from space they’re hotel rooms in the US have been much easier to spot. From above, documented in this way. n
Teaching AI to find forced labour camps Matt Reynolds
GOOGLE EARTH
ONLINE volunteers are helping to track slavery from space. A new crowdsourcing project aims to identify brick-making kilns in South Asia – frequently the site of forced labour – in satellite images (see below). This data will then be used to train machine learning algorithms to automatically recognise brick kilns in satellite imagery. If computers can pinpoint the location of such possible slavery sites, then the coordinates could be passed to local charities to investigate, says Kevin Bales, the project leader, at the University of Nottingham, UK. South Asian brick kilns are notorious as modern-day slavery
14 | NewScientist | 1 July 2017
Italy’s drying lakes put shrimp at risk AN ANCIENT shrimp found only in a single small lake tucked away in the mountains of central Italy could soon disappear, as a combined result of climate change and an earthquake that hit the area last year. The fairy shrimp (Chirocephalus marchesonii) has evolved from a species native to the Himalayan region. Its ancestors are thought to have reached the Apennine range in Italy during the last ice age, after their eggs latched onto the feet of migratory birds. “Over the millennia, the shrimp has adapted to the specific environment of Lake Pilato,” says Maria Gaetana Barelli of the Sibillini Park authority, which helps look after part of the Central Apennines. The species is unique among freshwater shrimp in the area for its Asian origins. Barelli is concerned that the crustacean may go extinct if the small lake it inhabits undergoes significant environmental changes. Last year, the region experienced a major earthquake that affected the groundwater system. “The water levels in the basin are abnormally low this year,” says Alessandro Rossetti of the Sibillini Park authority. Depending on the nature of the damage, the lake might ultimately dry out. The shrimp can survive long dry spells because it buries its eggs under the lake bed, where they can remain intact for more than a year until conditions are right to hatch. Even so, Barelli is worried. “My concern is that this year, because the water is already so low, the individuals present in the lake might not have the time to mature sexually and lay their eggs before the basin dries out.” The shrimp isn’t the only species under threat. In a valley not far from Lake Pilato, another shrimp, Chirocephalus sibyllae, depends on the regular seasonal cycle of a pond it inhabits. Again, its survival is tied to water availability when it matures and lays eggs. Lou Del Bello n
NEWS & TECHNOLOGY the kilns appear as round and usually pale structures, which makes them stand out in satellite images. They’re often clustered together, with several appearing in the same photo. So far, volunteers have identified over 4000 potential slavery sites across 400 satellite images taken via Google Earth. Once these have been checked several times by volunteers, Bales plans to use these images to teach the machine learning algorithm what kilns look like, so that it can learn to recognise them in images automatically. –Brick kilns can be slavery sites– Bales is also developing a similar approach for identifying open-pit mines in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are also often sites of forced labour. But he thinks his machine sites. There are an estimated learning algorithms might have 5 million people working in brick a trickier time categorising openkilns in South Asia, and of those pit mines, which often look like nearly 70 per cent are thought to big holes in the ground and can be be working there under duress – harder to spot. often to pay off financial debts. “A lot of slavery is visible from However, no one is quite space,” says Bales. But image sure how many of these kilns recognition techniques could there are in the so-called “Brick “If computers can Belt”, a region that stretches across parts of Pakistan, India and pinpoint slavery sites, the coordinates can be passed Nepal. Some estimates put the on for investigation” figure at 20,000, but it may be as high as 50,000. Bales is hoping that his also help track down slavery that’s machine learning approach will invisible to satellites. TraffickCam, produce a more accurate figure a database set up by the social and help organisations on the action group Exchange Initiative, ground know where to direct their uses image recognition to identify anti-slavery efforts. victims of sex trafficking. It’s great to have a tool for Travellers to hotels are asked to identifying possible forced upload an image of the inside of labour sites, says Sasha Jesperson their hotel room, and these can at St Mary’s University in London. then be compared with photos of But it is just a start – to really find the sex workers posted online by out how many people are being the sex traffickers. enslaved in the brick kiln industry, Because such photos are investigators still need to visit frequently taken in hotel rooms, every site and work out exactly investigators may be able use the what’s going on there, she says. TraffickCam database to pinpoint Kilns are often hidden in the location of a particular patches of cleared forest, which photograph and rescue trafficked makes them hard to detect on the individuals. More than 150,000 ground. But from space they’re hotel rooms in the US have been much easier to spot. From above, documented in this way. n
Teaching AI to find forced labour camps Matt Reynolds
GOOGLE EARTH
ONLINE volunteers are helping to track slavery from space. A new crowdsourcing project aims to identify brick-making kilns in South Asia – frequently the site of forced labour – in satellite images (see below). This data will then be used to train machine learning algorithms to automatically recognise brick kilns in satellite imagery. If computers can pinpoint the location of such possible slavery sites, then the coordinates could be passed to local charities to investigate, says Kevin Bales, the project leader, at the University of Nottingham, UK. South Asian brick kilns are notorious as modern-day slavery
14 | NewScientist | 1 July 2017
Italy’s drying lakes put shrimp at risk AN ANCIENT shrimp found only in a single small lake tucked away in the mountains of central Italy could soon disappear, as a combined result of climate change and an earthquake that hit the area last year. The fairy shrimp (Chirocephalus marchesonii) has evolved from a species native to the Himalayan region. Its ancestors are thought to have reached the Apennine range in Italy during the last ice age, after their eggs latched onto the feet of migratory birds. “Over the millennia, the shrimp has adapted to the specific environment of Lake Pilato,” says Maria Gaetana Barelli of the Sibillini Park authority, which helps look after part of the Central Apennines. The species is unique among freshwater shrimp in the area for its Asian origins. Barelli is concerned that the crustacean may go extinct if the small lake it inhabits undergoes significant environmental changes. Last year, the region experienced a major earthquake that affected the groundwater system. “The water levels in the basin are abnormally low this year,” says Alessandro Rossetti of the Sibillini Park authority. Depending on the nature of the damage, the lake might ultimately dry out. The shrimp can survive long dry spells because it buries its eggs under the lake bed, where they can remain intact for more than a year until conditions are right to hatch. Even so, Barelli is worried. “My concern is that this year, because the water is already so low, the individuals present in the lake might not have the time to mature sexually and lay their eggs before the basin dries out.” The shrimp isn’t the only species under threat. In a valley not far from Lake Pilato, another shrimp, Chirocephalus sibyllae, depends on the regular seasonal cycle of a pond it inhabits. Again, its survival is tied to water availability when it matures and lays eggs. Lou Del Bello n