Application of AI to aid in the production of wildlife programming

Presenter(s): Robert Dawes (BBC R&D)

BBC Research & Development has been investigating how AI technologies such as computer vision and machine learning can be applied to assist in the production of natural history programming. The primary system is used to assist in monitoring remote wildlife cameras. Trained neural networks help to both detect animals and recognize their species. This metadata is presented to the product team in various ways and used to help clip recordings of the activity. The systems are also used to detect inapropriate audio. This presentation describes how the systems work, how they have been applied with the production and some of the challenges that needed to be overcome, and explores the strengths and weaknesses of AI-based systems such as these.