Alphabet’s Tidal tracks individual fish for more sustainable farming

On Monday, X, Alphabet’s “moonshot factory,” unveiled a project it’s worked on for three years. Tidal is a dual-pronged project that uses a network of underwater cameras and machine learning to track fish behavior, according to The Verge. Tidal can monitor individual fish and begin to understand patterns in their life cycles in order to create more sustainable farming practices.

How does it work? — Currently, fish farmers pull a few fish to determine the health of thousands in their pens. Tidal’s cameras and machine learning tools provide farmers with information about every single fish and their environment. Metrics like eating habits and oxygen levels help farmers make more informed decisions about feeding, which in excess simply pollutes the water.

“Fish have a low carbon footprint relative to other sources of animal protein and they play a critical role in feeding 3 billion people today,” wrote Neil Davé, Tidal’s General Manager. “So helping fish farmers could prove critical both for humanity and for the health of the ocean.”

In the future, Tidal hopes to make other advancements related to the health of our oceans, but for now, we can enjoy the notion that even fish cannot escape facial recognition software.