'FathomVerse' lets you play mini-games to train the AI of underwater drones and contribute to ocean exploration projects
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), which is promoting a research project to track and observe marine life using underwater drones, has released a mobile game app called ' FathomVerse .' By playing this game, players can contribute to MBARI's research on marine life by classifying images of deep-sea creatures and training the drone's automatic tracking AI.
FathomVerse | mobile game
FathomVerse mobile game inspires a new wave of ocean exploration • MBARI
https://www.mbari.org/news/fathomverse-mobile-game-inspires-a-new-wave-of-ocean-exploration/
AI Sea Creature Robot
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-ai-sea-creature-robot/
'Our goal is to track marine creatures for up to 24 hours a day and answer questions about their behavior and ecology,' says Kakani Katija, principal engineer at MBARI. 'Imagine having autonomous rovers that tirelessly monitor the oceans and change their behavior when they come across something we don't know or have never seen before.'
Katya aboard MBARI's research vessel, the Rachel Carson.
Katya is involved in a research project that deploys a remotely operated underwater vehicle called a MiniROV off the coast of California to observe rare creatures that live in and on the seafloor.
The MiniROV is equipped with an AI, which team members call 'Agent,' that can autopilot the MiniROV and track underwater creatures.
Thanks to advances in robotics, underwater cameras, sensors and other technologies, researchers are collecting millions of images of deep-sea creatures, many of which are unknown. For example, of the 5,580 deep-sea creatures discovered in ocean floor surveys to date, only about 8% have been clearly identified.
Experts are using machine learning models to classify the data they've collected, but they're having a hard time because the appearance of sea creatures can change dramatically depending on environmental conditions such as lighting, water clarity, camera angle, and ocean turbulence.
When it comes to classifying unknown deep-sea creatures, many of which resemble spaceships or extraterrestrial lifeforms, the task is even more difficult for AI to handle.
So MBARI developed the mobile gaming app 'FathomVerse' with the help of gamers and marine life enthusiasts.
FathomVerse contains images of deep-sea and marine life from MBARI's database, including photos that have been reviewed by scientists, images tagged by AI, and images that have yet to be classified by anyone.
Upon starting the game, players will take part in a training dive where they will be trained to identify the characteristics of 47 different marine creatures. After completing their training as an amateur marine biologist, players will then float with the ocean currents and tap the screen to classify the animals they see into known species or tag them as unknown creatures.
After a dive, the app will score the player based on whether their classification matches the opinions of other players and award points based on their performance. In particular, unknown creatures that the AI was unable to identify will receive high points, and bonus points will be awarded if the player correctly labels an unknown creature as unknown. In addition, the classified images may later be examined by other players and researchers, and additional points may be awarded depending on the results.
Once players have earned enough points, they will progress to the next level, where they will be challenged to classify new sea creatures.
At the time of writing, FathomVerse had been downloaded approximately 17,500 times, and as of January 21, 2025, the number of images of unidentified marine life whose classification was confirmed by players' opinions had reached 47,799. This represents approximately 14% of the labeled images in FathomNet, a database of images collected by MBARI researchers in various research projects over the past 35 years.
Player contributions will help the AI agent in the underwater drone on deep sea missions to recognize more creatures with greater accuracy. For example, the AI previously misidentified sea anemones and black
'FathomVerse players are identifying animals that have never been identified before. They are probably the first people to see these animals,' Katya said.
FathomVerse is available for iOS and Android in English only.
'FathomVerse' on the App Store
https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/fathomverse/id6469854247
FathomVerse - Apps on Google Play
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