Cities Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Stop Illegal Dumping
Hearing the phrase “artificial intelligence” instantly brings to mind dystopian science fiction movies with overly advanced robots developing consciousness and taking over humanity. However, this is merely just an exaggeration of one of the uses for AI. Artificial intelligence is being used in cities all throughout the world, and being incorporated into policy and planning in order to solve problems that are either too difficult, too time-consuming, or require too many resources for humans to work on alone.
A perfect example of this is an app developed by an Australian company, SenSen Networks in order to help reduce the instances of illegal dumping. The app is called Gemineye, and works with your smartphone’s camera and SenSen’s artificial intelligence-powered software in order to “identify activities of people, vehicles of interest and assets of relevance to the city and upload this data to their smart city cloud infrastructure in real-time”. Gemineye allows municipalities to be alerted instantly when illegal dumping is occurring, as the AI is coded to be able to recognize the activity of dumping trash in an unauthorized location through the camera. This saves time and resources, as previously government employees would have to install CCTV cameras and comb through hours and hours of surveillance video in order to retroactively catch the perpetrator. Gemineye does the work for them in real-time so that the government workers can focus their attention on enforcement of the law, and it gives them the chance to be able to catch the person in the act.
Besides saving city governments’ time and resources to stop illegal dumping and protect their environment; Gemineye is also small and portable since it does not require surveillance equipment, but rather just a smartphone with a camera and possibly a mount. The software is currently being tested by one of Australia’s largest local governments, and is positioned in a popular donation bin site. Over a three-month period, Gemineye captured 4856 visits, over 200 of those which were illegal.
The only current criticism of SenSen’s Gemineye app is that the cameras have to be very visible and have good enough resolution in order to capture the illegal activity. Additionally, having so many cameras or smartphones out in the open can lead to vandalism or theft and be costly. However, the visibility and presence of surveillance cameras or phones can also be a deterrence for the illegal activity and work in the council’s favor. Since the app is still very new and it is still being tested, we will have to wait and see how it impacts environmental protection and enforcement in cities.
