[HN Gopher] See a Fish? Ring the Bell
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See a Fish? Ring the Bell
Author : cyanbane
Score : 149 points
Date : 2024-03-23 15:34 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (visdeurbel.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (visdeurbel.nl)
| taid9iK- wrote:
| Finally, an application for AI that makes sense.
| junon wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. This would be a great application for it.
|
| That said, they could also implement a bot for YouTube that
| allows a !ring command for when they're out of stream seats.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| "AI", what we used to call "ML" should be able to solve this,
| at least 10 years ago.
| layer8 wrote:
| ML has always been considered a subfield of AI: https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning#Artificial_in...
|
| AI as a field started in 1956, while the term "machine
| learning" was coined in 1959, as a sub-discipline of it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Before it was called ML, it was machine vision, used in
| applications like quality control since at least the 80's:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_vision
| petters wrote:
| More like an application of Canny edge detectors
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Every spring, fish swim right through Utrecht, looking for a
| place to spawn and reproduce. Some swim all the way to Germany.
| There is a problem, however: they often have to wait a long time
| at the Weerdsluis lock on the west side of the inner city, as the
| lock rarely opens in spring. We have come up with a solution: the
| fish doorbell! An underwater camera has been set up at the lock,
| and the live feed is streamed to the homepage. If you see a fish,
| press the digital fish doorbell. The lock operator is sent a
| signal and can open the lock if there are enough fish. Now you
| can help fish make it through the canals of Utrecht.
|
| So unless there are people watching and alerting them (free
| labor) the fish don't get to procreate? That's a lot of
| responsibility.
|
| It's so nice that they found a way to offload the externalities
| of running a lock without having to spend any money themselves,
| let the public do it. A playful implementation of "privatize
| profits, socialize losses". Why pay someone to actually watch the
| feed and react when appropriate if they can gameify and let the
| people do it.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I'm guessing this is a situation where the people with the
| power to fix this problem don't care and the people that do
| care don't have that power.
|
| Would you rather they didn't do this at all?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Of course I'd rather they do it this way than not at all.
| It's just so sad how unsustainable it is. It's great that
| there is so much interest, at least right now, I could only
| get a read-only spot in the feed.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's been around for years, how is it not sustainable!
|
| I get it _may_ not be sustainable, but is computer hardware
| and electricity sustainable? What about the maintenance and
| cost of those? This is a great solution. Beautiful. I feel
| like hugging this solution, as if I should bed it, and
| produce efficient, beautiful, socially wondrous offspring!
| zombielinux wrote:
| Sounds to me like a good way of building a high quality CV
| model with limited resources.
|
| Its not apparent as an end user if the signal to the lock
| operator is another human or a well trained model. And at the
| end of the day, if there is a human checking on it, does it
| really matter?
| Someone wrote:
| This is way more for raising awareness about the impact of
| locks and dams on fish migration than for the actual effect of
| this system on fish migration.
|
| For that goal, it works well.
| latexr wrote:
| > Why pay someone to actually watch the feed and react when
| appropriate.
|
| There is a an operator who gets final say. This way that person
| doesn't have to be driven insane with the mind numbing
| excruciatingly boring job of watching empty water all day.
|
| Plus, it gets the public involved in something positive that
| will both entertain them and get them to think more about our
| impact as humans.
| Beldin wrote:
| > _So unless there are people watching and alerting them (free
| labor) the fish don 't get to procreate?_
|
| The lock opens roughly once per day - more often if it's busy.
| Once the boating season starts, fish will piggyback off of
| that.
|
| It's not this hard to help fish pass a man-made obstacle. They
| chose to do it this way for public awareness. Leave off the
| public awareness goal and suddenly there are way easier, less
| involved methods.
| speedgoose wrote:
| It could be an interesting research dataset. I wonder what's the
| best method today. Perhaps a fine tuned YOLO model, or a CLIP
| searching for fish, or some simple OpenCV?
| FredPret wrote:
| This is amazing. They should make a little ML-operated door in
| the lock for the fish so you don't have to open the whole lock
| manually
| scoot wrote:
| How are the fish supposed to find it?
| newaccount74 wrote:
| This excerpt from the FAQ might be interesting:
|
| > We also want to show Utrecht's residents and visitors how much
| life there is underwater in the canals. The doorbell also
| provides information on the species and numbers of fish
| travelling through Utrecht's waterways. We can use that
| information to improve the quality of underwater life in Utrecht.
|
| Of course AI could do this without human intervention. They want
| the public to take part in this project.
| bbarnett wrote:
| An AI could after being trained, with a higher error level than
| 100s of humans (or 1000s) watching. Of course, what about a
| trinity of AIs with quorum?
|
| But anyhow, this sort of project.. even if announced today,
| likely started a decade ago in someone's mind. According to
| archive.org, it's been around at least 3+ years. AI wasn't
| realistic a decade ago, and even 5 years ago? Not really viable
| reliability wise.
|
| And of course, AI isn't free... they have to be trained,
| security updates and software updates and hardware updates over
| time. I mention all of this, because everyone keeps saying "AI
| could do this", but could it? Because it's not just "can it do
| it", but "can it do it as reliably and cheaply"?
|
| People are free. And as you say? People taking part is fun.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I'm pretty sure good enough computer vision has been around
| for decades. The newer stuff is object classification and
| facial recognition/emotional state type stuff. I think we've
| had good enough tech to find moving fish for quite a while.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Indeed. We have been classifying and sorting at least
| blueberries using neutral networks since at least the 80s
| or 90s.
| Filligree wrote:
| > Of course, what about a trinity of AIs with quorum?
|
| Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar?
|
| I suppose we could, but I think we already know what lies at
| the end of that road.
| cornedor wrote:
| > But anyhow, this sort of project.. even if announced today
|
| It has indeed been on and off since March 2021. This project
| could've been set up in no time, put a camera underwater,
| start the live stream, and set up the basic website. Building
| an AI will take way longer, with much more technical skills
| required, and much more money.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Considering how still and opaque the picture is (I have just
| spent 5 minutes staring at the stream), you probably don't even
| need fancy AI. Some sort of basic movement/change detector will
| probably do the trick just fine. But as you say the point is to
| involved people.
| bisby wrote:
| Just as I was reading your comment, a boat went by or
| something and there was a sudden rush of sand and debris
| kicked up from the bottom of the feed, and for the past 5
| minutes or so, there's been a constant stream of debris
| flying by and swirling around. Looks more like TV static than
| "still and opaque". Sometimes larger pieces of debris fly by.
|
| But that said, nothing here that proper machine learning
| couldn't handle.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| One can always find justification for more complex
| solutions ;)
| bisby wrote:
| I think it goes both ways though. One can justify more
| complex solutions, only to not need the added complexity.
| One can always ignore edge cases to justify a more simple
| solution. only to find out that the cut functionality was
| not quite as "edge" as expected.
|
| My security cameras love to declare that they detected
| motion because a car drove by and swept its headlights
| across my porch, and my cameras use a simple change
| detector.
|
| What are the consequences of false positives? For me, I
| get a notification, check it, and roll my eyes. For a
| lock, it opens too often? I have no idea what the
| consequences of that are. Maybe that's perfectly
| acceptable and a simple change detector is enough. Or
| maybe it changes water balance somehow and causes
| ecological problems, or impacts boat navigation (I mean,
| the lock is there for a reason in the first place right?)
|
| Sometimes complex solutions are justified. A camera is
| more complex than just looking into the water with your
| naked eye. But that necessitates having someone
| physically present, and able to see through the water.
| Everyone agrees that the complexity is worth it.
|
| I've worked with too many PMs who want the fastest easy
| solution without regard for the actual use case and then
| get perplexed by the side effects (that they were
| previously told about but refused to grasp). And
| generally I wind up being the person forced to be
| physically present watching for fish because the PM
| thought adding a camera was too much complexity.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| You could have the system flag unusual footage and ask
| humans (website visitors?) to review it. I am looking
| forward to fish captchas!
| Vox_Leone wrote:
| My friend, it makes up a fine entropy source, I can tell
| you. :)
| jtriangle wrote:
| Yes, you've happened upon a common trend with new tech.
| Everyone wants to use their shiny new hammer, some, only know
| the shiny new hammer, and the wise among them know to just
| stick to the nails.
|
| It happened with blockchain, it's happening with AI, it'll
| happen with the next big thing too, just as it has with many
| big things in the past.
| majikandy wrote:
| Oh, cool idea, this should be on the (b)lockchain!
| verticalscaler wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishfinder
| "Initially, our fish finder was sold for 600,000 yen per unit,
| which was as expensive as a house in those days. Despite its
| high price, the company's technology attracted fishermen from
| all over the country. In fact, I heard that a number of
| customers in the fishing industry visited FURUNO (which was
| formerly based in Nagasaki City) with backpacks full of cash to
| buy our fish finder," The Furuno Fish Finder is said
| to be the world's first practical fishfinder; it was introduced
| by the Furuno brothers for use in commercial fishing vessels in
| *1948* in Japan.
|
| Worked for 75+ year without AI so far..
| _joel wrote:
| I'm not sure sonar would work all that well in a canal, given
| everything else in it.
| porphyra wrote:
| It would still be good to have AI as a fallback to help the
| fishies out when no humans are online though...
| moffkalast wrote:
| This has been shared too many times on reddit to ever go
| empty I bet.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| That's what they said about
| thiswebsitewillselfdestruct.com.
| https://boingboing.net/2023/12/12/this-site-will-self-
| destru...
| Vinnl wrote:
| In fact, I think that's even the _only_ true goal. Operating
| the gate is a manual process that takes some effort and time,
| so it 's not like they run out to operate it every time someone
| pushes the button. In practice, I think they still just open it
| every once in a while.
| karaterobot wrote:
| It seems like they're saying you ring the bell when you see a
| fish, and that notifies the lock operator, who probably checks
| the same camera to verify it, then opens the locks if certain
| conditions are met. So, the advantage is that the operator can do
| other things besides watching the camera all the time, knowing
| that helpful people on the internet will alert him when needed.
|
| Does that work in practice, especially after the site goes viral?
| I'd assume there would be a ton of false positives, i.e. people
| ringing the bell for the lulz.
|
| If it's just a fun community thing, and the alert actually goes
| to the equivalent of /dev/null, that that's fine. Maybe a better
| metaphor would be those buttons on cross-walks that aren't
| attached to anything, but make you feel like you're influencing
| the light sequence when you press them. Anyway, I just don't get
| how this would work well in practice.
| Izmaki wrote:
| The feed is rate limited to 999 viewers. How do I know? Because
| I had to refresh a few times to get the doorbell UI... Imagine
| 900+ people ringing a "doorbell" whenever they see a fish
| tonight. I hope they can disable the ringing.. :D
| dengxiaopeng wrote:
| I used to work professionally in the US doing this sort of task
| with computer vision. The challenging part isn't so much the
| labeling/classification of a fish within an image; instead, it's
| a connection to cloud environments to do processing. Most of the
| projects I worked on were at hydroelectric dams, where-as an
| ironic punchline goes--it's punishingly hard to get access to
| reliable power or water.
|
| If anyone is interested/curious happy to answer any questions on
| here or via DM.
| ska wrote:
| > where-as an ironic punchline goes
|
| I knew someone who grew up a reasonable walking distance from a
| major operational dam, but had no grid access. They did have a
| generator I think, but would have had to pay the full cost of
| running lines to their land, and it was too expensive.
| fragmede wrote:
| Well, why is it so hard to get reliable access to power or
| water? I can think up reasons, but you've got the background to
| tell me why.
|
| Are there innovations in material science and technology that
| make things possible today that weren't 20 years ago? I have a
| shower attachment to tell me the temperature of the water, and
| it's powered by water through the device so there are no
| batteries to swap. I imagine the industrial versions must be so
| much more advanced than a gadget I got off Amazon.
| harrisi wrote:
| It's probably a much simpler answer. Why set up a bunch of
| plumbing and networking inside a dam if you don't need it?
| Many (most?) were built before the internet, as well. And I
| don't think they generally are staffed around the clock. Any
| more complexity than you need is a waste of money.
| bombcar wrote:
| I bet it's exactly this. You've a massive concrete
| structure where adding water lines and power is going to
| require quite a bit of paperwork before you can even begin
| to consider how you run it. And they can be quite long,
| too, and your sensors likely need to be somewhere that
| power (and clean water) currently isn't.
|
| And then you will discover just how well wifi travels
| through concrete whose thickness is measured in meters.
| sd9 wrote:
| Have you tried Starlink? I work in motorsports which has a
| similar problem, tracks being remote and internet access being
| minimal, but Starlink all but solved that for us (except
| unfortunately in countries without service).
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| People keep talking about training an AI to ring the doorbell but
| how about training the fish to do it themselves??
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Why bother? Just wait a few million years and fish will develop
| the capacity to ring doorbells on their own.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Why not train the fish to train an AI to do it?
| scoot wrote:
| It looks like this was given a second chance by mods, and moved
| to the front page, as it was originally posted 2 days ago, not 3
| hours (at the time of writing) [0].
|
| What's interesting is that it's the one with the editorialized
| title that has been rescued, despite this being against the HN
| guidelines.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=visdeurbel.nl [1]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nosrepa wrote:
| This is probably the fifth time I've seen this posted this
| month.
| adonovan wrote:
| I dread to think what the HN deathcuddle is doing to their
| poor doorbell.
| pentamassiv wrote:
| Did anyone see a fish? I've been watching the livestream did not
| see any. Luckely they have a gallery with the best pictures.
|
| I wonder how deep the camera is. There is even a picture of a
| bird under the water
| nouryqt wrote:
| According to this news article from the guardian about the fish
| doorbell the water is around 2.1m/7ft deep. Apparently the
| camera is at the bottom of the lock so around that depth I
| guess
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jun/29/fish-do...
|
| Also a short Youtube video from the city of Utrecht shows the
| whole operation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MgeR85IMOM
| tgtweak wrote:
| Could this not be done with ai image recognition? Also it would
| be great to have an interactive timeline (like a ring or nest
| doorbell camera) that shows previous fish and gate openings and
| understand busy times of day and fish species.
|
| Edit: Someone said "why not train the fish to ring the doorbell"
| and that got me thinking - what if there were two chambers inter-
| connected with a gate - with relatively large openings on both
| ends like a pipe that a stream would flow through under a road...
| fish would swim into one side and a Sonar, IR or Conductivity
| sensor would know when there is something other than water in the
| chamber and instruct the sluice gate to open. That way the fish
| are opening it just by swimming in either side. It would close
| when nothing is detected in either chamber for a period of time.
| It would be the fish equivalent of walking up to an automatic
| sliding door at a shop.
|
| You can still record the fish traversing and display it
| interactively so that people are engaged, but it doesn't become
| reliant on it.
| tnolet wrote:
| Awesome, this is 50m from my office. Born and raised in Utrecht
| but had no idea.
| jtwaleson wrote:
| Same, I cycle past this spot almost every day but had no idea
| :)
| cool-RR wrote:
| This might be the first actual livestream.
| rvanlaar wrote:
| Never expected this from my hometown to hit hackernews.
|
| For some context, here's the lock in streetview:
| https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0974077,5.1152216,3a,75y,277...
| iefbr14 wrote:
| Wouldnt it be handier if the door bell was placed under water so
| the fish can reach it?
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