We might not know with perfect certainty what the health or appearance is of that pier. With the training the robot has had, it would be able to go down, make its own decisions about how to explore the environment, and come back with a complete 3D map of the pier. Those are the kind of applications that we’re thinking about that could really be beneficial to New Jersey.
Artificial intelligence can be enlisted for prosaic chores like monitoring infrastructure that can save governments time and money.
The search for the Titan sub has already cost millions and a recovery operation at such extreme depths would be "prohibitive in cost," an ROV expert said.
ROV stands for Remotely Operated Vehicle – a manually controlled robotic machine capable of traversing the ocean floor at depths difficult for a submarine to reach.