This robot sees all the fish and extends their life by double

Shinkei Systems has developed a robot that looks like a refrigerator. Called Poseidon, it can process fish independently. With computer vision, it can analyze each fish, determine its type, and locate its brain. Once it finds the brain, it stabs it and cuts off the gills at the same time, killing the fish quickly so it doesn’t struggle or asphyxiate. This is ike jime, an ancient Japanese technique for slaughtering fish that yields high-quality meat, but on an assembly line instead of by hand.

This isn’t actually about animal welfare. According to TechCrunch, founder Saif Khawaja said the main benefit is improved quality and shelf life. Fish killed by this method will last much longer than those killed conventionally. Conventional fish lasts 5–7 days, while Seremoni (the brand name) lasts 12–14 days and can be prepared approximately 3 weeks after harvest, according to the company. That’s a huge change in the economics of a food supply chain.

1Where the money actually is

Approximately 18% of seafood spoils during transportation from boat to market. That costs money and leads to waste. Shinkei improves shelf life and processes each fish optimally (it always makes the ideal cut) by using its robots, which is a direct attack on that 18%. They’re vertically integrated, with robots, a 16,000 sq ft processing facility in Tacoma WA, and their own Seremoni brand of processed fish. They also have sensors inside their facility that scan the fish and display an estimated shelf life for each individual piece.

This isn’t just theory. They’re currently testing Seremoni at Erewhon’s Manhattan Beach store, and they supply restaurants with a total of 50 Michelin stars. They’ve raised money from Founders Fund, who said that AI and defense are now 15–20% of their deployed capital, indicating that there’s a lot of money going into physical AI applications (instead of chatbots).

2Why it matters for you

We tend to think about AI as something that appears in chat windows. But it’s also being used to automate precise tasks in obscure places like fish processing plants, not phones. And it has tangible benefits, like nearly doubling shelf life and eliminating 18% of spoilage, which means that this robot will actually get used.

What I liked: The interesting thing about this story isn’t the robot’s dexterity, it’s that the ROI is obvious. If AI vision can reduce spoilage, increase shelf life, and improve yield, then it’s an obvious win. Look for more stories like this, where physical AI applications have an obvious ROI and spread quickly.