Summary Reader's Response #3

In the article “A Little Robot That Cleans the Beach, One Butt at a Time”(2021) by Gonderman, talks about an Artificial Intelligence (AI) beach buggy robot named BeachBot in short for BB, has a very distinct goal, which is to clean up all cigarette butts on the beach. However, as stated in the article, in the midst of the World Cleanup Day in September 2020, the BB is only able to scoop up 10 cigarette butts in 30 minutes. Therefore, the BB's aim is to be able to keep up with cleaning the 4.5 trillion cigarettes unethically thrown per year. 

As cigarette butts are constantly being thrown unethically, Mother Earth will be further damaged and in order to stop and reduce the harmful impacts, BB robots and other AIs will progress and strife to clean up our beaches of the cigarette butts despite the fact that it might also produce its carbon footprints.

Firstly, BB's robot specifications and the way it programs will be the start to a cleaner and greener land. Gonderman (2021) stated that BB's robotic eyes are specifically made to look for cigarette butts on the beach based on their "size, shape, and angle they land on the sand" while not stuck in any other trash. It will then use its "image-detection algorithm" from the 2,000 images that TechTic, a company that made BB, paid to contributors of the images and learn how to look for cigarette butts. TechTics also has smaller robots that help to locate the cigarette butts and notify BB to allow BB to clean them up.

Secondly, it is important that cigarette butts are cleared up before they further damage Mother Earth. In the article, Root (2019) says that cigarette butts pollute the sea and are hazardous to the sea creatures. Cigarette filters are made of a plastic called cellulose acetate. "When tossed into the environment, they dump not only that plastic, but also the nicotine, heavy metals, and many other chemicals they’ve absorbed into the surrounding environment." Furthermore, the cigarette butts look like food on the sea surface for the sea creatures which can be dangerous if the sea creatures ingest them. Therefore, we can conclude that it is critical for us to tackle the littered cigarette butts due to their harmfulness to our ecosystems.

Thirdly, AI is necessary for the future to cultivate and better aid us in our future endeavors. Based on an article by Gow (2020), "AI can positively impact on our environments in agriculture, energy, transportation, water resource management, manufacturing, facilities management and materials science". AI can also help to reduce the impact of our company's contribution towards carbon footprints. In another article, renowned AI ethicist Coeckelbergh, M. (2020), as cited in van Wynsberghe, A. (2021), also suggests using AI to solve our environmental and climate issues. Hence, we can all agree that BB will be able to increase its productivity as AI progresses to be more advanced in the future.

However, AI can also cause carbon footprint to increase. Gow (2020) states that AI also produces and increases carbon footprints despite the fact that it is trying to reduce its carbon footprint. Furthermore, "just because the most common methods of AI today aren't significant carbon producers, doesn't mean they might not become serious contributors in the future". In addition, BB is not able to sustain forever and needs some form of charging of batteries. Hence, we can all agree that carbon footprints are bound to be produced from the AI and their batteries are not 24-7 powered.

In conclusion, cigarettes have harmful effects on human bodies. However, some of us still smoke and litter the cigarette butts. Artificial Intelligence like BB is able to help reduce cigarette butts despite the fact that it might also cause some form of carbon emission. In addition, the BB is only able to scoop up 10 cigarette butts in 30 minutes, 175 thousand cigarette butts per year, which is clearly not enough to cover for the number of cigarette butts littered yearly which is at 4.5 trillion per year. However, I do believe that in the future we will be able to invent an AI that could solve our environmental pollution problems and at the same time keep its carbon footprint emission at its lowest.

References:

Gow, G. (2020, August 21) https://www.forbes.com/sites/glenngow/2020/08/21/environmental-sustainability-and-ai/?sh=64bc21b97db3

Gonderman, M. (2021) https://www.motortrend.com/news/beachbot-ai-robot-techtics-cleans-cigarette-butts-beach/

Root, T. (2019, August 9) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/cigarettes-story-of-plastic

van Wynsberghe, A. (2021, February 26) Sustainable AI: AI for sustainability and the sustainability of AI. AI Ethics 1, 213–218 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-021-00043-6