Using AI for Good: Learn about the Deep-Sea and Become a Citizen Scientist

You may have seen the image of the angler fish coming to the ocean's surface this past week and thought: wow, what else is hiding in the deep?! Well if you want to learn more, try gaming. FathomVerse is a new game that aims to create citizen-scientists out of us all with the power of AI and robots! This mobile game allows you to help scientists by identifying deep-sea organisms. It all started with the MiniROV, a remotely operated vehicle deployed off of the research vessel Rachel Carson, being sent down into the depths of the ocean by a team of biologists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). With nearly 30,000 hours of deep-sea filmed, the MBARI has "tagg[ed] more than 10 million animals and other features of interest over the last 35 years, the largest library of annotated deep-sea video data anywhere in the world." But on a trip in mid-2024, the team began testing some new technology - "a machine learning algorithm trained to identify marine organisms in real time." Over the last four years MBARI Principal Engineer Kakani Katija and her team have been developing a suit of software tools collectively called Ocean Vision AI. There are three parts to Ocean Vision AI: FathomNet, the Portal, and FathomVerse. FathomNet is a database housing labeled images and machine learning models to be used for identifying ocean organisms. The Portal is a collaborative online tool using AI to process ocean imagery. And the third and final piece of the puzzle is FathomVerse, whose goal is to involve the public in this groundbreaking scientific work.

Machine learning models require just that - learning. And the algorithms for the FathomNet and Portal facets of Ocean Vision AI need as much data as possible to understand exactly what it should be doing and subsequently create accurate species identifications. This is where &ranj Serious Games and Internet of Elephants enter the chat. These two tech enterprises in collaboration with the team at Ocean Vision AI drew inspiration from community science apps like iNaturalist and eBird that take advantage of the public's curiosity in nature to create the mobile game FathomVerse. This game has been described as a cozy sci-non-fi as the pace is set by the player as they move through minigames, racking up points and awards by learning to identify nearly 50 groups of ocean animals. Ocean Vision AI's Engagement Coordinator Lili Carlsen says, “It’s designed to be easy to pick up. You can enjoy it with your morning coffee or while waiting for the bus.” By playing FathomVerse, not only would you be helping scientists with research of the nearly unexplored deep-sea, you'd be one of the first to see these images as the game is tied to Ocean Vision AI's other platforms pulling in new images collected by researchers exploring the oceans.

I know that many people, myself included, are warry of using AI for both environmental and personal reasons. But by using this AI tool not only are we participating in scientific research badly needed for our everchanging oceans, we are also showing the world that there are so many possibilities for good out of this new technology. Instead of using energy and AI to generate fake photos, help scientists use AI to study real photos of the amazing sea life in the depths of our planet!

Sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-ai-sea-creature-robot/?embedded-checkout=true

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/stories/into-the-fathomverse