Technology can be fascinating, but when you combine puppies with artificial intelligence, it’s a match made in social media heaven. So when the internet heard of Milind Raj’s puppy rescue with a drone, of course everyone went gaga.
According to NDTV, the 27-year-old was out for a morning walk in Lucknow sometime last month, when he discovered a whimpering, crying puppy trapped inside a 20-feet drain in the middle of the road. According to him, the puppy had been trapped for about two days. “It was not possible for a human to rescue the puppy without endangering their own life,” Raj told NDTV.
So Raj, who builds robots for a living, came up with a unique, inventive plan: “I decided to put technology to the task,” he told NDTV. Taking calculated risks, he decided to attach an AI-controlled robotic arm to a giant drone to rescue the helpless puppy – a process that took him about six hours. The robotic arm was equipped with a smart heartbeat sensor which supposedly ensured that the arm didn’t suffocate or crush the little puppy.
Raj was soon on his way to rescue the puppy once he’d completed his contraption and the process was captured in the video above, apparently shot by a curious bystander.
All in all, it was a happy ending for the puppy, who was apparently adopted by Raj and is now called “Lifted”. However, things aren’t looking up for Raj. Once the video and the news of Raj’s puppy-rescuing drone went viral – and several people did praise him – sceptics on the internet started to question the authenticity of the puppy rescue and the motives of the man behind it.
Some questioned how the puppy was so clean, in spite of being trapped in a filthy drain; some wanted to know how the puppy had a harness conveniently tied around him, while others wondered why the video only started when the puppy was already mid-air.
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