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Microsoft built AI to protect you from idiots that smoke at gas pumps


A lit cigarette burns at around 600-degrees Celsius (1,100 F). The auto-ignition point for gasoline is less than half that. Somehow, despite these facts, people smoke while pumping gas. In fact, it’s such a prevalent problem that Microsoft developed an AI-powered alarm system to help gas station employees crack down on offenders. It’s difficult to imagine the amount of idiotic hubris it takes to disregard basic thermodynamics, but some people simply won’t be bothered by certain doom. Those people are called smokers, and Microsoft’s Azure team figured out that some good old-fashioned cloud-based artificial intelligence at the edge was the…

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