Scientists say they can tell if a manic pig really is going hog wild.
British researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory claim they have developed a revolutionary new artificial intelligence system to determine if a swine is feeling happy or down in the sty.
“Our work has already demonstrated a 97% accuracy at facial recognition in pigs,” said Professors Melvyn Smith and Lyndon Smith of the Centre for Machine Vision. “Our next step will be, for the first time, to explore the potential for using machine vision to automatically recognize facial expressions that are linked with core emotion states, such as happiness or distress, in the identified pigs.”
The scientists assert that the high-tech processor could better pigs’ welfare, claiming that content animals require lesser amounts of food, steroids and antibiotics.
The revolutionary system might also be used on other animals in the not-so-distant future, reported Country Life.
An animal welfare scientist at Scotland’s Rural College stated that the technology would benefit farmers.
“I think farmers know a lot about their pigs and when to recognize very obvious signs of a problem and deal with those,” Emma Baxter told the BBC.
The system would use scans of pigs’ faces to identify their feelings. Photos would be taken and a machine would use artificial intelligence to recognize expressions.
The information is hoped to have practical benefits for those tending their porcine charges. If it is found the animal is in pain, the farmer or handler would receive a text message to notify him or her of the issue.
Baxter added that as agriculture assumes a more global range and larger, more integrated farms become the norm, a tool capable of monitoring animals’ expressions would be valuable to farmers.
