Humans are not the only ones who should be worried about their jobs being taken away by robots. Turns out, job-stealing 'bots are soon going to make dolphins the oceans' new unemployed.
The U.S. Navy has used trained dolphins and sea lions to hunt mines for over 50 years, as part of its initially classified Sea Mammal Program. These animals have been used to spot the oceans' hidden bombs because of their unique echolocation capabilities — they have what can be described as a biological sonar. The downfall, apart from the fact that you're putting animals in danger, is that they need a lot of care and are expensive to maintain. That's why the US Navy plans to phase out the program in 2017 and start replacing its fleet of friendly mammals with not-so-friendly but more efficient and cost-effective robots.
One of the robots will be the Knifefish, a 20 feet missile-shaped unmanned underwater vehicle that can roam the seas for 16 hours. This sub-drone is still in development, but should be ready by 2017.
So even though dolphins are a “fantastic system” to spot mines, as Capt. Frank Linkous told the BBC, machines will be able to replace them adequately. “Maybe not 100%, but fairly close.”
To learn more about how robots will replace dolphins in the US Navy, watch the video above.
Photo courtesy of US Navy, DVIDS