There are some things that computer programs can do better than humans. Especially monotonous tasks like observing 24/7. According to Louis Bouchard, the author of the article How AI Helps Spotting Wildfires, “The most common problem is that they(wildfires) are spotted too late and already widely spread out. This is because you cannot have somebody staring at that wall all day, waiting to spot smoke or fire.” It is important for a wildfire to be spotted as soon as possible. The later a wildfire is spotted the bigger it becomes, and the bigger it becomes the harder it is to control. Catching these wildfires quickly is indeed a big deal because the local fire department can deal with the situation in the critical opening moments when the fire begins to rage. 

This technology would not be considered a robot because it does not have any wheels or arms, but it does “make decisions”. Well, it really only has one decision to make: to alert the fire department or not. This AI is simply a computer program that has been trained by humans to detect what we call “smoke” in a photograph or video. There are multiple high-resolution camera towers set up across areas of observation to scan the horizon for any evidence of  wildfires in the region. Then, if the program detects what it has been programmed to identify as “smoke” then it will automatically send an alert to the local fire department. This system has been implemented in Brazil for at least 3 years now and has reduced fire detection time from forty minutes down to less than five!