Poop Drones Are Keeping Sewers Running So Humans Don't Have to

They need to make mining drones mandatory, too. Humans have no business being in holes. They are not their holes, they do not belong in them.
I'm looking at you, spelunkers.

Why are you flying the drones though? Just give them wheels and call them robots.
Costs less, is easier to operate, uses less energy, less sensitive parts exposed, can be used in smaller spaces, easier to recover...
- Or you could read the article. Wheels ain't gonna work down there bro.
  
  There is no mention why wheels wouldnt work.
  They only mention that flying is difficult because of confined space and changing airflows.

Sewer drone found footage could make a great horror movie.

This is honestly such an uplifting news that gives me hope for the future.
Prefer this over stories like a 10 year old that raised money to make up for lack of health care or some dystopian thing like that.
- Ten year olds operate the drones 👀

"What is my purpose?"
- Cue the worship of the "Master" that sends them holy shit a la "Reason" by Isaac Asimov.

Well, that’s a brand new sentence.

Now, the drone-captured data is sent off to contractors at SewerAI, who run it through their AI-assisted algorithms to identify defects automatically.
Now this is the kind of AI shit (pun intended) I can get behind (pun even more intended).
- This is the kind of AI that will change the world, not the word salad machines that burn through massive amounts of compute to sound kind of intelligent. The ability to train an AI model to identify problems is incredibly useful, whether it's sewer blockages or cancer cells.
  
  yep. all we have to do is keep incrementally improving lives with tech, instead of being assholes to each other. Imagine the world, if peace was the most researched branch

Two words I never thought I’d see together… poop drone.
- Honestly I though somebody was using drones to throw shit at people below.
- Well I'm glad it's this and not a drone made of poop.
  
  Why do I believe if Mythbusters was still on the air they’d actually try this.

So much for Mike Rowes dirty jobs.
(Jk, those things were always a load of shit anyway.)
- eh...
  mike rowe's full of shit. don't think for a moment any of those jobs were made up though.
  Man now I miss cash cab...
  
  It's basically like saying "illegal immigrants" aren't made up for Trump. Like, obviously people coming into the country illegally exist, but the dude was just making shit up when it came to the actual numbers.

Sounds like a shitty job.
- AI is great at doing shitty jobs.
  
  And ai is shitty at doing great jobs
- Yeah I'm sure he regrets quitting his job to pass butter

https://youtu.be/ub0wV0TvY8Q

One job that we can happily hand over to robots

We are all poop drones on this glorious day.

I had poop drones on my bingo card!
Have vaginal scented candles been invented?
- You are multiple years too late on vagina candles: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jan/13/why-is-gwyneth-paltrow-selling-a-candle-that-smells-like-her-vagina-goop
  
  That's a bingo! Is that how you say it?

Remind me of that James Bond scene https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9h1zn7l86HA

Lmao, they outsourced pooping to drones.
And I was doing it for free too.

So now all Lemmy is on board with this AI. Why is acceptable for technology to take the jobs of plumbers (usually poorer) but it's evil for it to take the job of 'artists' (usually rich)????
- I'm on board w/ both honestly, as unpopular as that may sound. If a job can be automated, it should.
  I want to point out that an AI being able to do a job doesn't mean that job is now obsolete for humans. There will always be room for that human touch, which is why things like kit cars and hand-carved statues are still a thing in an era of automated car factories and 3D printers.
  I've been getting into chess recently, and the best chess AIs can consistently beat top humans, yet there are still tournaments for human competitors to compete against each other. The human touch will always have value.
  I think Lemmy is just scared of change. To be fair, so am I, but as long as I learn to adapt, I should get net benefits from technological advancements.
- in what world is a plumber poorer than an artist
  
  In which world they aren't? Like if you have the option of working throwing paint onto a pice of cloth or taping bananas to walls would you chose to work with literal human shit to your knees and your elbows??
  Also see my other comment, only 8% of artist (in the UK) are working class against A FUCKING 100% plumbers being working class.
- This is not generative AI. It is machine learning- which has been around for aaages.
  
  Generative ai is also machine learning, and you could say that the ai is generating movements and actions for the drone. My question, that was not about the underlying technology or semantics, still stands.
  
  Legitimately- what's the difference, in your mind?
- I don't think jobs this hazardous are generally done by plumbers. Sending in a robot instead of a human makes sense.
  Especially when the robot is better at finding faults before people's homes collapse into a sinkhole.
  
  English is not my first language and I'm no expert in sewers maintenance so substitute whatever trade/job title instead of plumber.
  I'm not against this robot quite the opposite. But I'm curious about the reaction when technology 'takes the jobs' of working class people like in this case (or you know last couple centuries) being very different than when it takes the job of artists, journalists, writers...
- 'artists' (usually rich)
  I ~~know~~ think you're trolling, but…
  
  Not trolling at all. I used to hang around an art school when I was a teenager, the vast majority of those kids came from pretty well off families. The small percentage that were of a more working class background were there to get into graphic design or the-like in college, so they didn't end up being artists.
  A quick web search gives that only 8% of artists are working class in the UK which is a wealthy country, I'd bet the percentage goes down in poorer ones.