This Woman Created An AI System to Monitor Her Cat’s Poop

A software program engineer spent two years designing a machine studying system to log her cat’s pooping habits, and it concerned sensors, an infrared digital camera, a Raspberry Pi, and about 50,000 photos of cat poop. The engineer, a YouTuber who goes by Estefanni, posted a video to her channel this week detailing the method of making the AI system after studying that her cat Teddy had been consuming plastic. The cat proprietor wished a option to monitor her cat’s pooping schedule to extra simply know whether or not or not he’s constipated.

Estefanni begins the 6 minute video with a determined plea that the majority cat homeowners are accustomed to, invoking the urge to go to excessive lengths on your cat in hopes that they could love you again (even a little bit bit). She began off her challenge by writing a python script and organising sensors above the litter field to see when Teddy went to rest room. Except it isn’t simply Teddy utilizing the field— Teddy has his personal cat named Luna who makes use of the identical litter field. In order to distinguish between the 2 cats, Estefanni used an image taking script, in addition to a digital camera setup with infrared lights pointed on the litter field. She then took hundreds of images of her cats pooping, and fed the photographs to a machine studying system in order that it might differentiate between Teddy and Luna.

The ultimate step was to know whether or not the cats had been going primary or two. Estefanni turned to a web site that sends photos to a server, which makes predictions based mostly on the info, like how lengthy Teddy spent within the kitty litter. The server then sends the cat proprietor its prediction of which cat was utilizing the lavatory, and whether or not it was for pee or poop. That manner, Estefanni can know if Teddy’s bowel actions are wholesome, or if he’s constipated as a consequence of his self-destructive behavior of consuming plastic.

The cat poop AI system is unquestionably giving Rick and Morty’s Butter Robot vibes. “Did I make an AI whose only purpose in life is to watch my cat’s poop?” Estefanni asks within the video. “Will it come after me when the machines rise?” The software program engineer must be good so long as she’s serving the world’s true overlords; cats.