US NSF - Now Showing: Merlin's Bird Color Challenge

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Merlin's Bird Color Challenge

image of a bird

Sharpen your powers of observation--and contribute information to help build Merlin, a bird-identification tool that uses artificial intelligence and input from citizen scientists to create an online "wizard" that helps people quickly identify birds.

In order to collect data from citizen scientists, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology created a game, "Merlin's Bird Color Challenge," where participants are shown a bird image for five seconds, and then they are asked to recall the bird's colors. In learning how people remember and describe birds, Merlin the computer will use this information to help him become a better bird ID wizard. The more you play, the more you'll help Merlin!

To help train Merlin, visit www.allaboutbirds.org/labs.

Credit: Tom Johnson