How AI and mosquito sex parties can save the world

Diptera.ai has raised a $3 million seed round to fight mosquitoes with mosquitoes — and AI-based sex sorting. Jerusalem-based Diptera.ai has figured out a way to use AI to fight the growing threat of mosquitoes, which are spreading malaria and viruses like Zika, dengue, and yellow fever. While the method for fighting mosquitoes has been around for decades, AI can take it to a new level and democratize what was otherwise a very costly and localized abatement effort. We’ll get to the sex parties in a bit. Diptera.ai is using computer vision and eco-friendly technology to make it easier to control mosquito populations using the sterile insect technique, which sends sterilized male mosquitoes to mate with female mosquitoes, said Diptera.ai CEO Vic Levitin, in an interview with VentureBeat. “We think we can disrupt the $100 billion pest control market,” Levitin said, noting that many other pest control methods are toxic to both humans and the environment.

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