anothercatgirl,

I’ve seen lasers do the same job more effectively. An attachment for a combine.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

Operating this at scale will be a problem. Yes, you can make one this big, but how durable is it when you build one at industrial scale? If you need a million little tiny fingers working for days at a time, what's the mean time to failure and how hard are they to replace?

Starglasses,

How many people do you think are weeding at a time on a farm? And at what rate?

This is absolutely scalable. It doesn’t need to be bigger. It’ll just go row by row like every other farm tool :)

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

Right, but how long will it last before it breaks? If it can only do an acre of crops before part of the mechanism breaks it won't get adopted by farmers.

Starglasses,

How long until your car breaks? These aren’t going to be flimsy machines. What makes you think they would be?

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

That's why I'm asking, there's no details in the article about its expected lifetime and that's important for adoption

Starglasses,

I meant to convey that the machine isn’t going to fail after one acre or any other small amount. It won’t be built out of legos ;)

And shouldn’t the end-game be to eliminate the need for human labor for these grueling jobs? Even if the first iteration isn’t quite as good, it is important to look to the future.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

I agree that it's a good thing, but I don't think you understand the point I'm making, so I'm ending it here.

flying_monkies,
flying_monkies avatar

Wonder how much WaaS (Weeding as a Service) is going to cost.

anothercatgirl,

I hope farmers refuse to buy any weeding machine that they don’t fully own (right to repair, etc.)

Lordbaum,

Looks cool and probably really useful, but I don’t know how much sustainable future relies on Monocultures, because of loose of biodiversity, soil etc you know the drill.

zero_spelled_with_an_ecks,

Maybe it could deal with multiple crops grown together eventually.

Starglasses,

I agree with the other commenter. This is step one. One day will be robots that can maintain healthy food forests.

anothercatgirl,

for food forests, you just need to add a tool-switching machine similar to how some CNC mills can automatically switch tools.

DrunkenPirate,

Oh, it pushed a rabbit back into earth unintentionally.

CharlesMangione,

This looks like a truly good use for AI.

lurch, (edited )

I hope they don’t scale it up to pluck the ingredients for soylent green.

CharlesMangione,

Just give it a decade or two.

SidewaysHighways,

I wonder if consent makes any difference there. Would that be vegan?

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