Extended Producer Responsibility

This image represents an AI that is embedded in a material in order to trace and facilitate its life cycle. This is a speculative mechanism for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies. EPR is a policy approach that places the responsibility for the post-consumer phase of a product's lifecycle on the producer, requiring them to manage the disposal or recycling of their products in a socially and environmentally responsible manner.
An AI embedded into a product could provide information about the product's material composition, provenance, real-time maintenance needs, et cetera. Imagine a garment that can describe where all its constituent parts are from, what labor went into constructing it, what its carbon footprint is, when and how it needs to be maintained or repaired and can even facilitate its own maintenance or disposal.