I know. I know. I’ve been saying a lot about the evils of AI. And we can’t forget about that component, but when there is another side of the argument, I have to let you know about that, too.
We’re going to take a deep dive into the ocean. Now that subject may seem like it’s coming out of the blue, so let me explain. Some of you know that I have a book for middle-graders in the publishing process. It is about creatures at the bottom of the ocean. To state the obvious, I have a strong interest in the ocean, and read a lot about it. In the Summer 2023 issue of Oceanus there is an article by David Levin titled, “AI in the Ocean Twilight Zone.” What is described in that article is so amazing, I’ll just copy a bit of it here for you.
It’s a vast improvement over the way that plankton biologists had to work just a generation ago, [Heidi] Sosik adds: “Before high-volume imaging and AI, the best we could do was to pull a discrete water sample from the ocean and have a human look at it through a microscope. This technology gives us many orders of magnitude more information, while doing it faster than any human could.”
While the technique sounds almost like magic, creating AI software that can achieve these goals isn’t trivial. Much of the work comes in the preparation, rather than the software itself: first, scientists have to create an annotated dataset—effectively a huge trove of reference material that shows each known species in multiple angles and settings—and use those examples to “train” the AI in advance. Using that information, the software’s algorithm can generate a complex set of rules to identify each organism in the wild. It’s a bit like studying photos of a stranger before trying to spot them in a busy restaurant. . . . “It’s really a game changer for our field.”
“There are so many ways that AI is enabling our understanding of the twilight zone,” she says. “Ultimately, that understanding is going to help humans make better decisions about how to protect those organisms, and how to be better stewards of the natural world.”
If you’re wondering what the twilight zone is, I’ll throw in a mini lesson. The ocean is divided into layers. The upper zone, called the epipelagic zone, or sunlight zone, goes down about 660 feet, and it is where visible light exists. The sunlight brings heat with it, so there are wide variations in temperature there.
Next is the mesopelagic or twilight zone. Starting at that 660 feet where the sunlight leaves off, the twilight zone goes down to about 3,300 feet. Sunlight is not able to successfully pierce the water that far, so it gets incrementally darker the deeper one goes in the twilight zone. Because of the lack of sunlight, it also lacks the heat of the sun. By the time you get to the bottom of the twilight zone, it is very dark and very cold.
From 3,300 feet to 13,100 feet is the bathypelagic zone or midnight zone. If you guessed it got this name because it is very, very dark down there, you’d be right. The only light you’ll see down there is from bioluminescent animals.
There are a couple more zones, but this is a mini lesson after all. The important thing to know is that the ocean covers 71 percent of our planet. And if you want to study something in deep water, good luck. We have higher-resolution seafloor images of less than one percent of the entire ocean floor.
While humans do use HOVs (human occupied vehicles) to explore all parts of the ocean, they are limited by the amount of time a person can stay down that far, the high cost of such exploration, and other factors. Perhaps now you’ll realize how extremely important the addition of AI is to learning all we can and need to know about our ocean. Remember, fire can warm our homes and cook our meals. It can also burn down buildings and everything in them. Few things are all good or all evil. We need discernment. You may want to re-read my blog post of June 16, 2023.