Geese, it turns out, are more complex creatures than we can imagine. Beyond their known tendencies towards jealousy and revenge, scientists have discovered through artificial intelligence that geese have the ability to recognize individual faces.

AI is used to understand how geese distinguish and recognize humans

This discovery came about when Sonia Kleindorfer took over as director of the Konrad Lorenz Research Center for Behavior and Cognition in Vienna, Austria. Her predecessor, the renowned Austrian biologist Konrad Lorenz, had the uncanny ability to identify the local Greylag Geese by name, simply by looking at facial pictures on a plaque.

But Kleindorfer found himself struggling to repeat this feat. To solve the mystery of how the geese were distinguished from one another, he turned to a colleague who had created an artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition system. This system, fed with an extensive database of photographs of geese taken from various angles, enabled him to identify geese by the distinctive markings on their beaks alone.

Taking the research further, the team sought to understand the dynamics of geese’s social interactions. Using AI-generated images, they tested whether the geese could recognize their peers. The results were intriguing: Not only were the geese unable to identify the images of their mates and friends, but the geese were unable to recognize their own reflections because they cannot easily perceive their own images.

At a time of growing concern about the implications of AI, this application of AI in scientific research offers a refreshing perspective. While facial recognition has previously been used to distinguish between animals, this latest discovery provides a deeper insight into the daily drama that unfolds in the lives of geese.