Summer is the peak season for crowds to flock to the beach.
Now, extra steps are being taken to keep them safe from what lurks in the water.
And beaches are using this cutting-edge tech to stop the worst from happening with sharks.
Artificial intelligence is being used to spot sharks near the beach
The summer shark attacks across the country have made headlines.
While rare, they are always a potential threat with shark populations in the oceans growing.
Now, some beaches are using artificial intelligence (AI) to try to protect beachgoers from sharks.
Padaro Beach in Santa Barbara County, California is one of the busiest beaches for shark activity this summer in the Golden State.
The ocean near the beach became a hot spot for young great white sharks.
A program called SharkEye was launched by the University of California Santa Barbara Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory to spot sharks.
Drones would fly over the ocean near Padaro Beach and send out a text message warning lifeguards, surfing store owners, and others that a shark had been sighted.
Other beaches had used drones to look for sharks, but it needed a human monitoring the video feed.
That opened the door for human error in trying to spot a shark in the water.
AI increases the accuracy of detecting sharks
“SharkEye – part research program, part community safety tool – is using the video it collects to analyze shark behavior. It’s also feeding its footage into a computer vision machine learning model – a type of artificial intelligence (AI) technology that enables computers to glean information from images and videos – to train it to detect great white sharks near Padaro Beach, close to the city of Santa Barbara,” CNN reported.
A shark attack has not happened yet at Padaro Beach, but SharkEye has spotted 15 great white sharks in a single day in the ocean near it.
“Automating shark detection … can (also) be really helpful for a lot of communities outside of ours here in California,” Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory scientist Neil Nathan said.
Neil said that SharkEye’s AI has allowed it to spot sharks deeper in the water that a human might miss.
The lab has been assessing it versus a human to determine how effective it is.
Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory is hoping to use the technology to keep humans safe and learn more about the behavior of sharks.
“SharkEye plans to make its model free and available for researchers to amend or build on, and to create an AI-powered app that’s easy for people like lifeguards and drone hobbyists to run their footage through. That could help keep people safe but also allow humans to better understand and protect sharks,” CNN also reported.
Honolulu, Hawaii is considering using a drone program to monitor its beaches for sharks.
“Communities want to have that knowledge and that awareness so it’s easier to more safely share the water with these creatures,” Nathan said. “Sharks are an incredible species that we still are always learning new things about.”
AI could be a cutting-edge tool that helps keep beachgoers safe from shark attacks.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
