Humans have travelled the sea in some form for tens of thousands of years—with the earliest crossings occurring around 53,000 to 65,000 years ago (when Australo-Melanesian populations migrated into the Sahul landmass – known today as Australia and New Guinea – from what used to be the Sundaland peninsula.)

It’s often said how we know more about the moon than our oceans, with around 95 percent still unexplored. Arguably, the last major ocean research expedition was between 1872 and 1876 when a converted Royal Navy gunship known as the Challenger travelled close to 70,000 nautical miles and catalogued over 4,000 previously unknown species.

Inspired by the Challenger’s story, IBM has teamed up with non-profit ProMare to make a similarly large impact on ocean research.

The autonomous ship, Mayflower, is named after the ship which carried pilgrim settlers from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. On its 400th anniversary, it was decided that a Mayflower for the 21st century should be built.

Brett Phaneuf, a Founding Board Member of ProMare and Co-Director of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship project, said:

“Putting a research ship to sea can cost tens of thousands of dollars or pounds a day and is limited by how much time people can spend onboard – a prohibitive factor for many of today’s marine scientific missions.

With this project, we are pioneering a cost-effective and flexible platform for gathering data that will help safeguard the health of the ocean and the industries it supports.”

Naturally, there are more than a few differences between the original ship and the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS).

Mayflower 2.0 no longer relies solely on wind power and will use a wind/solar hybrid propulsion system with a backup diesel generator. The new ship also trades in a compass and nautical charts for navigation in favour of a state-of-the-art GNSS positioning system with SATCOM, RADAR, and LIDAR.

IBM’s deep learning technology is on-board to help the ship traverse the harsh and rapidly-changing environment of the ocean.

Donald Scott, Director of Engineering at Marine AI (which partnered with ProMare on the project), explained:

“In the middle of the ocean, communications are severely limited. Conditions can change very suddenly, and you don’t have the option to stop and power down.

With MAS, we needed to go beyond the existing technology for unmanned ships, creating a vessel that isn’t just operated remotely and doesn’t simply react to the environment, but learns and adapts independently.

To do this, we had to develop state-of-the-art capabilities around navigation, collision avoidance, communications and more.”

The training of AI models for the MAS began in October 2019. The actual hull for the ship arrived in Plymouth in March and sea trials began. Over the next few months, the ship was fitted with its advanced navigation and research equipment.

Andy Stanford-Clark, CTO of IBM UK & Ireland, added:

“IBM helped put man on the moon and is excited by the challenge of using advanced technologies to cross and research our deepest oceans.

By providing the brains for the Mayflower Autonomous Ship, we are pushing the boundaries of science and autonomous technologies to address critical environmental issues.”

MAS’ voyage couldn’t arrive at a more needed time with humans causing huge amounts of damage to the health of our oceans. A UN report found our oceans are now warmer, more polluted, more depleted, and more acidic than ever before.

Rising sea levels are among the key concerns about the impact on humans, but another is the increasing number of plastics in the sea which is simultaneously causing harm to sealife and ending up in the food we eat.

Professor Richard Thompson, OBE, Director of the Marine Institute, University of Plymouth, commented:

“Microplastics present a substantial challenge to our oceans. Over 700 species come into contact with marine litter which is found from the poles to the equator, and estimates are that the quantity of plastic in the oceans will triple in the decade to 2025.”

However, armed with the right data, it’s not too late to change course and heal our oceans.

MAS is fitted with a range of sensors including acoustic, nutrient, temperature, and water and air samplers. Edge devices will store and analyse all data locally until connectivity is available. When a link has been established, the data will be uploaded to edge nodes onshore.

Unless there are any last-minute delays, MAS is set to depart on its voyage this month. The ship is due to arrive in Plymouth, Massachusetts around two weeks later. Where required, updated deep learning models can be pushed out to the ship.

MAS’ virtual crew will be based in Plymouth, UK but IBM says millions of virtual “pilgrims” will be able to experience the voyage online.

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A report from Greenpeace earlier this month exposed Google as being one of the top three developers of AI tools for the fossil fuel industry. Greenpeace found AI technologies boost production levels by as much as five percent.

In an interview with CUBE’s John Furrier, the leader of Google’s CTO office, Will Grannis, said that Google will “no longer develop artificial intelligence (AI) software and tools for oil and gas drilling operations.”

The pledge from Google Cloud is welcome, but it must be taken in a wider context.

In 2019, Google Cloud’s revenue from oil and gas was approximately $65 million. A hefty sum, but less than one percent of all Google Cloud revenues. Furthermore, Google Cloud’s revenue from oil and gas decreased by about 11 percent despite overall revenue growing by 53 percent.

While Google Cloud’s revenue from the oil and gas industry was declining, the public’s intolerance towards big polluters is increasing. The reputational damage caused to Google of continuing its relationship with polluters would likely have been more costly over the long-term.

This isn’t the first time Google has cut-off an AI-related relationship with a controversial industry to preserve its reputation.

Back in 2018, Google was forced into ending a contract with the Pentagon called Project Maven to build AI technologies for drones. Over 4,000 Google employees signed a petition demanding their management cease the project and never again “build warfare technology.”

Following the Project Maven backlash, Google CEO Sundar Pichai promised in a blog post the company will not develop technologies or weapons that cause harm, or anything which can be used for surveillance violating “internationally accepted norms” or “widely accepted principles of international law and human rights”.

Back in January, Pichai called for sensible AI regulation that does not limit the potential societal benefits.

PAX, a Dutch NGO, ranked Google among the safest companies developing AI while slamming rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft for being among the “highest risk” tech firms in the world.

(Photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash)

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European researchers from Capgemini have developed a platform called Project FARM (Financial and Agricultural Recommendation Models) which aims to boost farmers’ yield, optimise the value chain, and bolster the global food supply.

Project FARM is first going to be used in Kenya to assist coffee farmers. The platform was built in collaboration with East Africa-based social enterprise firm Agrics which provides local farmers with agricultural products and services on credit.

Julian van Velzen, a data analyst at Capgemini who leads Project FARM, said:

“By connecting farming communities with data science, and big data with traditional farming methods, the FARM platform is built to optimise the value chain and bring parties together as an ecosystem around one data-driven platform.

The platform can pave the way for bringing automated farming to small-scale farmers. With the increasing availability of open data and decreasing prices of sensors and satellite imagery, the future of farming is bright.”

AI is used to analyse farm data sourced from Agrics in addition to satellite data from Project Sobloo, a Copernicus Data and Information Access Service (DIAS). 

A dashboard provides insights to the farmer with tailor-made advice on how to optimise production. This advice can also be sent via SMS so, for example, an alert can be issued to take precautions if a crop-damaging thunderstorm is due the next day.

On the business-side, Agrics is able to use the data to foresee any risks that may impact each farmer and their investment.

Violanda de Man, Innovation Manager at Agrics East Africa, commented:

“Through our interactions with the farmers, we are on top of a huge reservoir of data. We can now turn this data into meaningful insights, which allows us to provide time and location-specific products and services to increase yield and lower risk at farm and value chain level.

Increased value chain effectiveness will help to directly improve the income and food security of rural populations.”

The global demand for food is expected to increase by 60 percent by 2050 and most of the world’s population is fed primarily by small farmers in developing countries. Supporting these farmers isn’t just the moral thing to do; it also helps to keep food on all of our plates.

Earlier this week, Fairtrade warned that coffee could become a luxury due to climate change affecting production. According to Catherine David, head of commercial partnerships at Fairtrade, issues like extreme temperatures, increased humidity, and pests are hitting farmers’ crops.

Meanwhile, a growing population is living longer and the demand for coffee is increasing. Combined with the expected production issues, the quality of coffee is expected to decrease while prices rocket.

I don’t know about you, but I need my coffee and would rather not have to take out a loan for my fix.

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