Facebook has repeatedly announced large-scale projects, among which a special place is occupied by an attempt to map the population density of our planet using artificial intelligence technologies. The first mentions of this project were made back in 2016, when the company was creating maps for 22 states. Since then, the project has expanded significantly, resulting in a map of most of Africa.
The developers say that the compilation of such maps is not an easy process, even despite the presence of satellites capable of taking high-precision images. When it comes to the scale of the entire planet, processing and studying the data obtained takes a lot of time. The AI system, which was previously used by Facebook specialists in the implementation of the Open Street Map cartographic project, can speed up the implementation of the tasks. It is used to recognize buildings in satellite images, as well as to exclude areas where there are no buildings.
Facebook engineers say the tools currently in use are faster and more accurate than the tools used in 2016, when the project was in its infancy. To compile a full-fledged map of Africa, its entire territory was divided into 11,5 billion images with a resolution of 64 × 64 pixels, each of which was processed in detail.
In the next few months, Facebook plans to open free access to the cards received. The company says that the work done is important, since population density maps will be useful in organizing rescue operations in the event of disasters, for vaccination of the population and in a number of other cases. Experts note that the implementation of the project can bring commercial benefits to the company. Back in 2016, the project was considered as a tool that would eventually allow new users to connect to the Internet. This task will be easier if the company knows exactly where potential customers live.
Source: 3dnews.ru