Facebook is present in practically the whole world, aggregating thousands of users. The company is now trying to map the planet's population density through the use of AI.
The initiative was first revealed in 2016, as it created maps for 22 nations. Now, however, the company has expanded maps that cover "most" of Africa. "The project will eventually map almost the entire population of the world," Facebook said.
As Facebook says, creating maps of this size is a challenging job for humans. Even though there are high-resolution satellite images that cover virtually the entire planet, transforming data into information is no easy task. To develop population density maps it is necessary to label each building in the images, and then cross-reference it with the census.
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But for Artificial Intelligence, the task is simpler. In order to automate the entire process, Facebook engineers use data from the Open Street Map open source mapping project to train a computer vision system that is capable of recognizing buildings in satellite images. They even used the information to be able to remove much of the satellite data that also showed unoccupied land.
According to Facebook, its new machine systems are faster and more accurate than those announced in 2016. In order to map the African continent, the programs dismembered 11,5 billion 64 X 64 pixel images. The group verified the work with the help of researchers at the Center for the International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University.
"Rigorous assessments - both in the field and through high-resolution satellite imagery - by our in-house teams and through third-party partners have confirmed the unprecedented accuracy of our initial launch," Facebook said, "and we've made significant improvements to our last generation in the last two years."
Based on the data, the maps built will be made available free of charge for anyone to use in the coming months. In 2016, when Facebook unveiled the maps, it presented them as not just a humanitarian effort, but a way to "connect the disconnected". This means that it is a means of bringing more users to the internet.
Source: The Verge
