“An estimated 33 billion pounds (15 billion kilograms) of plastic trash enter the oceans every year – the equivalent of dumping two garbage trucks worth of waste into the ocean every minute – according to the US nonprofit Oceana. Most of it gets there via rivers and coastlines,” reports CNN:
Clearbot is trying to change that with its autonomous, solar-powered boats, like one in Hong Kong that can gobble up 176 pounds of waste an hour….Today, it is operating about a dozen boats for various government bodies and corporate clients across Hong Kong, Thailand and India. Its biggest boat can collect 441 pounds of garbage an hour and carry a load of 3,300 pounds, collecting the waste in a barge towed behind it…That includes one collecting waste from the religiously significant but extremely polluted Ganges River, that runs through the city of Calcutta, India. Another operates in Umiam Lake in northeast India, where waste runs downstream from mountainous villages…
Its boats can be guided remotely through an online dashboard, or set to run autonomously. Clearbot has developed algorithms that allow the boat to navigate around obstacles, and to analyze what’s being collected – providing data so that officials can act to stem the flow of waste into waterways….In Hong Kong’s Mai Po Nature Reserve, a resting spot for migratory birds, a Clearbot boat has done work to remove the eggs of invasive apple snails – which it can detect using an artificial intelligence model – to stop them from multiplying. For that job, an “agitator,” a type of robotic arm, shakes the eggs off plants, and a nozzle sprays water at the eggs.
German robots are hunting the sea for tens of thousands of unexploded World War II bombs found in the North Sea.
Last year, doctors used a surgical robot to carry out incredibly complicated spinal surgery. They also did the first robotic liver transplant in America.
Robots are improving productivity in other industries. Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. On some American farms, there are drones with artificial intelligence, and robots that use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Scientists have developed tiny robots to repair damaged cells, and nanorobots to destroy cancerous tumors.
Robots are replacing some fast-food workers after California increased the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour, which many franchises just can’t afford. Thousands of fast-food workers lost their jobs due to the minimum wage hike.
