Linnaeus
Interspecies money transfer service
Image © Linnaeus
Interspecies Money
Linnaeus is a prototype interspecies money transfer service. Our mission is to make it possible for humans to send money to non-human life forms.
Linnaeus aims to build the artificial intelligence backend and the biometric “wallets” necessary for interspecies money transfers.
Linnaeus will be organised to acquire large amounts of data in the wild. Verification requires it to show, in a timely fashion, where a rare life form is, what condition it is in and whether it is receiving the services it paid for. In order to do this, Linnaeus will use an array of AI, sensing, mobile telephony, and fintech to build datasets that are accurate, high-resolution, and persistent.
Image © Linnaeus
Community rangers will record video and track the location of the recipient species on basic mobile phones. Camera traps will be deployed at water holes and along paths. Payments will be made for observation of spoor, prints, hair, and sometimes genetic sampling. Drone and satellite imagery will be gathered from above, for instance to periodically detect slash and burn farming, tree cutting, and the presence of cattle. Further layers of information such as weather, economic data, security and political volatility will be added. Data on recipient species will be made available for those paying into the service. Some data will be repackaged into compelling stories for meaningful engagement. Over time, this may evolve into new forms of sharing beyond just money transfer.
Linnaeus benefits from breakthroughs in AI pattern recognition technology. One early study using camera traps in the Serengeti in Tanzania, an AI identified 48 species from 3.2 million images with 94% accuracy. Other examples include a solution for detecting emotion in sheep from their facial expressions, detecting when a sow is pregnant in an industrial pig farm, and counting marine mammals from drone footage.
The bigger ambition for Linnaeus is in computational game theory. Game theory is used in antagonistic situations such as stopping malicious behaviour on a computer network or predicting pirate attacks on shipping lanes. Linnaeus will turn interspecies money into a game by laying a meta layer on the world which can be tweaked and improved. The game tells humans that certain nearby species have money and want to spend it on services they can provide. Services and incentives can be adjusted towards an equilibrium that benefits both animals and community. The game will be played for as long as the extinction threat exists, or until interspecies money is no longer a relevant or welcome intervention in nature.
The use of scalable algorithms will likely make Linnaeus more nimble and affordable than traditional conservation. However, interspecies money is an approximation and subject to bad actors. It will not work where communities are insecure from natural disasters, or where they are powerless to stop armed gunmen from killing animals or cutting down trees for charcoal. Linnaeus is intended for targeted conservation, where a particular species needs a greater chance of survival. Where it does work, Linnaeus will be characterised by an ability to shift strategy on a weekly basis.
Interspecies money transfer service
Image © Linnaeus
