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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/robots-wheel-autonomous-farm-machines-210000476.html
I see this as good and bad.
Good to let the machine do the work while the farmer can do other things.
The bad, software upgrades, and product lock in.
John Deere tractors, the farmer can no longer work on the tractor himself. A certified technician from Deere is the only one who can work on it. -
In fact for many years, it has been highly illegal with stiff ramifications, if a farmer tried to open the proprietary software inside a machine he might own. In actuality, they are mostly leasing them and then leasing newer every few years. No one’s house is worth what these MONSTERS cost in this era. You used to be able to buy the whole FARM for those prices. But then, farming was always extremely expensive…and with fairly high risk. These days, big hot-shot important folks can descend upon farms that use some of these mega-machines.
The GPS deal has been around for a while too. My uncle told us about theirs ….a decade ago? I assume one has to manually drive once to make the route.
I’m no Luddite but …..there is something spooky about not really owning the stuff you buy. Very dependent on non-agri folks….like computer programmers. And it would seem economically unfeasible to make profit unless you owned half the county.
BTW, some of those I know using these are doing so as testing for Deere. Part of the Big Hot-Shot Important folks who come to observe. Going back to where I grew up…..almost nothing is recognizable. Wheww!
And who sets of a photo shot of the dumb machine running over the rows of crop? Pffft!
OldMtWoman ….and I didn’t come from the horse-drawn days..
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One emp or solar flare away from total collapse. Yeah with Microsoft software on your comp do you really trust bit to drive your car grow your food? One hack away from total carnage imagine devastation if whole years crops get wiped out by a tractor tilling field before it’s ready to harvest can’t replant so you starve.
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R2D2’s programming gone wrong? Nah, Namelus. Couldn’t happen, right? 😉
OldMtWoman {roll eyes}
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Couple of years ago there were some lawsuits going on about the nature of the problems with the new machines. Especially the repairs/programming.
If some decent hackers wanted to make some real cash, taking out all the bs from the security would pay off quick.
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The funny part, the satellite image, moisture tested, GPS directed planters and fertilizers were actually doing better than the farmers who had been on the land their whole life.
Automatically adjusting for moisture, swampy conditions, only putting down what was needed.
But the unseen things like deer carcasses and such would jam up the works even faster than before, at least the human was watching for them.
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So would fire, earthquake, flood, tornado, machines can help but until ai with enough remotes can see and run operations no way man can be replaced. What about a downed animal? Stuck in fence? Wander off through broken fence? Pushed into water hole? Plug in irrigation from rats nest? Helping difficult birth sure the computer will be all soothing…. wait till your kids delivered by robot….
Then are we no longer the masters of this world but the favored pet….. till it decided 9 billion cats too many … probably due with 100k… welcome to terminator movies.
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