So I can either set up an expensive machine that will make my electricity meter spin like a helicopter rotor while being a major safety hazard to life and, even if it works only as intended, fill the air with a constant supply of mosquito smoke (don’t breathe this!) or I could just get some of those curly sticky strips from the dollar store.
I know what option I’m going with.
This is neat but also stupid. If a laser has enough power to fry a mosquito, it can also fry your retina.
Yes, I’m aware he added a safety system. That’s one layer of Swiss cheese in the safety system. It’ll work flawlessly until it doesn’t. How are potential reflections handled?
Meanwhile, God who deliberately gave us a spare eye for this exact reason
Do not look at laser with remaining eye…
Send two to: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
GodOdin
Having lived in Florida, it’s worth the risk.
Could run it similar to those disinfecting light bulbs (only when the room is not occupied)
How do you ensure that the room is empty, 100% of the time? Those disinfecting light bulbs don’t have the same level of risk as this laser system.
Perhaps a second laser defense system can be installed to ensure people stay out of the original room?
I like the way you think. I think more of life’s second-order problems should be solved with blinding lasers.
Secondary problem: how to implement the sharks
But if the laser is blind, how will it hit the mosquitoes?
Have it spray tear gas first. But wait, then the laser won’t be able to penetrate the cloud. Maybe we could add a quadcopter drone to clear a path to the mosquito for the laser to fire. But then we’ll need a system so the drone doesn’t run into a human choking on tear gas, and the drone can’t see because of the limited visibility, could we use infrared sensors I wonder? /s
This is a stupid system. I love engineers, but they tend to uh… overengineer things like this.
I think we’re overthinking this a bit. I have one simple question. Hear me out. Can a mosquito survive a nuclear blast? I’ll let you sit with that a minute.
“Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure” has always been my policy for spiders, mosquitoes and ticks, so I’m looking forward to World War 3 going nuclear. I’m just a bit concerned that the “from orbit” part implies I’m supposed to be up there when it happens, and while I understand the basic mechanics of how to get there, I’m not sure how I’m going to handle the logistics after that point.
Or set fire to delicate fabrics, wallpaper, or other potentially flammable surfaces a mosquito might be near or on.
I don’t think a reflection would be coherent enough to carry enough energy to cause damage.
Personally, I’d just wear laser goggles while the system was operating.
It doesn’t need to be coherent, just needs enough joule. The prior commenter is right, if it can fry a mosquito even a reflection will damage eyes
What a coincidence that these horseshit AI stories are are coming thick the same day OpenAI’s IPO is filed…
Uhhh no? This is machine vision not generative and not at all related to OpenAI….
Do you think 90% of people understand or care what the difference is? They see “AI” and think it’s synonymous with any of the big LLM providers. The point of PR pieces is to push public opinion in a certain direction regardless of the facts.
Exactly the problem - they see “AI” and go full Rambo.
Didn’t you see the “Please don’t feed the trolls” sign? It’s right there by the snack table.
Paranoia and Ignorance are a dangerous combo
Why was this guy’s house full of mosquitos?
Don’t ask questions you are not sure you want to know the answers to.
Mosquitos are always landing up on the ceiling, you could just mount it above eye level with hard stops preventing it from pointing down, make sure you don’t have shiny ceiling things, and it’s safeish :P
When light encounters a surface, a certain amount of it is absorbed, some may pass through the material, and the rest reflects. All of those functions are variable with wavelength- a material that is opaque to visible light may be transparent to other forms of radiation, like radio waves. This is actually where our perception of color comes from- it is the wavelengths of light that weren’t absorbed by and didn’t pass through the surface we’re looking at. (Sorry, I’m a nerd about this sort of stuff)
A laser is extremely concentrated light. Most materials can only absorb a certain amount of that energy. As such, a lot more of it reflects back off the opaque surfaces it encounters, even if they aren’t mirrors. For a strong enough laser, even that weakend reflection can do damage.
Other possibilities include automatic cigarette lighter - soon as it sees you put one in your mouth, you’re puffin’.
I will 100% kickstarter this.
I’d just stick screens on one’s windows and maybe use DEET if you’re really at the height of mosquito season in a bad area.
Like, this has a DSLR camera, a GPU constantly churning away, a laser…
I was actually thinking about it for population control because it could be running almost constantly. And energy wise, I’m not really concerned. I’m on solar+batteries, and anything I can do to prevent juice going to HECO is worth it to me.
If you want population control, just get some buckets and put some water and a mosquito dunk in them. The mosquitos will be attracted to the stagnant water but all the eggs will get eaten by bacteria.
This is also how mosquito magnets work. Release CO2 and an attractant, catch the fuckers in a bag, and they dessicate. Unfortunately, it doesn’t need lasers and can’t shoot your eye out. I’m sure it’s also more expensive, I mean profitable.
TIL about mosquito dunks
Oh you sweet summer child.
Getting DEET at a high enough concentration to be effective is difficult as hell, Zero, countem fuckin zero OTC bugsprays offer it higher than 15 percent, and 20-25 percent is where it actually starts to matter. Further, that’s only a deterrent, and I have been in places where the swarm is so thick you kill bunches just by clapping.
We’re not even getting into the midges, which are small enough to breeze through mosquito netting
https://www.rei.com/product/784606/bens-100-max-formula-insect-repellent-95-percent-deet-125-fl-oz
Zero above 25%?
Insect mesh netting comes in many grades, you can certainly get a fine enough mesh to block any bug that matters.
https://www.seattlefabrics.com/54-No-See-Um-Mosquito-Netting-500-linear-yard_p_92.html
Depending only on a second vision system as a safety interlock seems… foolhardy, to say the least. A laser strong enough to instantly fry a mosquito is likely also strong enough to instantly make you blind.
It will eventually turn into this
This idea was tried previously. If done right, it doesn’t take much energy to damage a mosquito’s wings.
Secondly, a laser is only a real issue for vision if the eye focuses on it. With a continuous beam, it would be instinctive, making it dangerous. If the pulse is short enough however, the eye won’t have time to focus and so the power will be safely spread out, even inside the eyeball.
Per a quick search, 500mW is the threshold where a laser can start doing damage faster than your blink reflex and reflections are also dangerous (IIRC this is the bottom end of class 4 lasers). Most of the projects I’m finding online that are similar to this one are around 1W, so double the threshold.
That’s not necessarily the “instantly blinding” territory I suggested, but even a short exposure will cause damage.
I’m highly skeptical of this thing’s ability to detect and locate a mosquito in 3d space over any kind of range using pictures of mosquitos on his arm as a training set.
Comes out of the first live test run with a shit ton of laser burns on his arm.
“I think I’ve pinpointed the problem.”
AI: “Great news! I’ve found the mosquito! I’ll shoot it with the laser now.”
Inventor: “Oww! That was my arm!”
AI: “You’re absolutely right! My mistake. Let me scan again… Okay I’ve definitely identified the mosquito this time! Shooting laser now…”
Inventor: “DAMN IT, THAT’S THE EXACT SAME ARM, AGAIN!”
So are these for sale and just wear mirrored sunglasses. 😎
hahaha… I like that 😃
This is not novel. This has been done 100x in the past. It doesn’t work.
But this time there’s AI involved… so we can also boil the oceans!
There’s AI and then there’s AI. Unless you think the system is talking the mozzies to death, get a grip.
You think he DIDN’T use a multimodal ML model to feed it images plus text prompts?
I’d boil an ocean to exterminate all mosquitoes
It worked insofar as it killed all the mosquitoes. Whether it’ll end up burning his house down in the long run is still up for debate.
