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"Humans are not the only ones who should be worried about their jobs being taken away by robots. Turns out, job-stealing 'bots are soon going to make dolphins the oceans' new unemployed.\nThe U.S. Navy has used trained dolphins and sea lions to hunt mines for over 50 years, as part of its initially classified Sea Mammal Program. These animals have been used to spot the oceans' hidden bombs because of their unique echolocation capabilities \u2014 they have what can be described as a biological sonar. The downfall, apart from the fact that you're putting animals in danger, is that they need a lot of care and are expensive to maintain. That's why the US Navy plans to phase out the program in 2017 and start replacing its fleet of friendly mammals with not-so-friendly but more efficient and cost-effective robots. \nOne of the robots will be the Knifefish, a 20 feet missile-shaped unmanned underwater vehicle that can roam the seas for 16 hours. This sub-drone is still in development, but should be ready by 2017.\n\nSEE ALSO: Watch This Human-Like Robot Endure Crazy Obstacles\nSo even though dolphins are a \u201Cfantastic system\u201D to spot mines, as Capt. Frank Linkous told the BBC, machines will be able to replace them adequately.  \u201CMaybe not 100%, but fairly close.\u201D \nTo learn more about how robots will replace dolphins in the US Navy, watch the video above.\nPhoto courtesy of US Navy, DVIDS\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/11/17/robots-replace-navy-dolphins/>