Robots and AI Will Guide Australia's First Fully Automated Farm (abc.net.au) 41
"Robots and artificial intelligence will replace workers on Australia's first fully automated farm," reports Australia's national public broadcaster ABC.
The total cost of the farm's upgrade? $20 million. Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga will create the "hands-free farm" on a 1,900-hectare property to demonstrate what robots and artificial intelligence can do without workers in the paddock... The farm will use robotic tractors, harvesters, survey equipment and drones, artificial intelligence that will handle sowing, dressing and harvesting, new sensors to measure plants, soils and animals and carbon management tools to minimise the carbon footprint.
The farm is already operated commercially and grows a range of broadacre crops, including wheat, canola, and barley, as well as a vineyard, cattle and sheep.
The total cost of the farm's upgrade? $20 million. Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga will create the "hands-free farm" on a 1,900-hectare property to demonstrate what robots and artificial intelligence can do without workers in the paddock... The farm will use robotic tractors, harvesters, survey equipment and drones, artificial intelligence that will handle sowing, dressing and harvesting, new sensors to measure plants, soils and animals and carbon management tools to minimise the carbon footprint.
The farm is already operated commercially and grows a range of broadacre crops, including wheat, canola, and barley, as well as a vineyard, cattle and sheep.
Universal Income (Score:1)
For every human worker with a job that a robot can replace today, assign a robot to do their work and send the human a percentage of the robot's salary. Then nobody has to starve, I reckon a robot would bring home quite a big salary. Work on a farm SUCKS, I am glad humans don't have to toil their ass on a field anymore. What's the point of work anyway, repetitive boring movement fucks up your joints long-term? Food production can increase. Use the UBI check to buy a Peloton if muscle usage is your fancy.
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By the way, I have essentially done this. I made a program that companies can use to do stuff, and I get paid cause that program does stuff on my behalf. In addition, as an investor, I also get paid dividends during my retirement. That too is sort of like having a robot do my work and me getting the robot's salary.
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Why were you down modded. The point being made here is that software developers for a few centuries have been automating work with some of the individuals learning how to do it in such a way as to maintain dividends from their automation.
Fuck, consider the DevOps roles at Amazon. It basically exists because they realized the architects and software developers could do the majority of the world with baby sitters simply watching the automation and handling any routine work that still needs a persons review.
Th
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Why were you down modded.
ACs start at 0.
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Lol. I am a jackass. Fucking ACs.
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Coming up next: fully automated factories that produce and install fully automated farms without any human intervention.
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Not anytime soon, but at some point the humans will have installed all the farms needed. And then 90% of them will lose their jobs, while the rest does maintenance and repairs.
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Until robots start to write software themselves. Which is actually starting to happen.
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Not.
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Nope. You should not believe everything somebody writes. Actual software writing is so far out of range of what computers can do that nobody competent is sure it is even possible.
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If you can see the amount of stuff AI can do today which would have been deemed impossible a few decades ago, and just add a couple more decades, I don't see why this would be impossible. Today, of course, it's extremely limited to some limited optimization techniques and templates, not even anywhere near real AI. But given time, I think we'll evolve to a kind of programming where we just tell the computer what we want an app to do, and it will take care of the rest. High level programming languages and lib
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Nope. Pretty much all "AI" can do today was clear to eventually work with more computing power 30 years ago (when I had a lecture on it at university).
Computers cannot write code. All they can do is transform some description of code that basically already includes everything or is very, very limited into code.
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Family farms is something of human worth, for those farms who want the life style and be productive at it, why should they be denied by the psychopathic greed of a tiny minority who want to own all the land and all the robots and CONTROL WHO GETS FOOD and who does not.
Family farms over corporate robot farms run by psychopaths, their law, obey or starve. That's the reality.
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Just because someone has a family doesn't mean they care about you any more than a corporation. Drug dealers have families too, many cartels are family-run as well. Heck, some corporations have near majority ownership by a family.
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You don’t know many farmers do you? The very much care about the product they ship and how it’s used and perceived by consumers ( the other 99%).
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The usual model is instead of people getting paid a fraction of the robot's human replacement salary, you just get stuff cheaper. This has been happening for generations already in other industries like textiles.
Before automation, something as simple as a servant's shirt in the middle ages (Henry VIII's time) would cost 3 to 10 days income - ie. someone earning the equivalent of $10 an hour would have had to spend $240 to $800 dollars on a shirt.
So I wouldn't hold your breath on getting an income from the r
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For every human worker with a job that a robot can replace today, assign a robot to do their work and send the human a percentage of the robot's salary. Then nobody has to starve
But then how would the rich look down upon the poors? Welcome to capitalism.
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Indeed. And the anti-UBI assholes will just have to suck it up, because there is no way this is going to work without making sure those replaces can still buy stuff and live decently. Incidentally, this whole effect goes up to mid-level white-collar jobs. For example, quite a few banks are hard at work replacing their client advisers with "AI" (really just Eliza on steroids, but for most things that is enough) and 9 of 10 jobs or so in that area will vanish permanently with no replacements. In the end, ther
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This could make monocrops more susceptible (Score:3)
However, implemented properly with diverse algorithms available and competing, and long term quality improvements, it could work and be beneficial and is worth studying.
I do not believe it will work for animals. Animal diseases are much more numerous and variable than crop diseases. A sensor tag on a cows ear can not tell if they have a stone in their hoof or if a predator is harassing them. We have already found problems with algorithms used on people which are causing harm. I talked with Temple Grandin about this and she saw that sensors on animals had some value, but could make life for the animals hell if people were not also checking up on the animals daily.
Farming has a lot of moving parts which are going to make automating it difficult. Weather can not be controlled. New insects move in or leave. Spores and seeds travel on the wind and the local mix will change over time. Water availability varies. The long term adaptations will be the last to be figured out.
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It could also do the opposite, because this approach could well make mixed crops not be much more expensive anymore. As to all the other stuff: This is being modeled and taken into account. The current state is the outcome of half a century of respective research or so. They can already do everything successfully, they are now just in the last phase, namely industrializing it. May still take 10 or 20 years before becoming cost-effective, but that stage is not far off and it will be reached.
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Mixed monocrops are still monocrops. Growing clover in-between corn stalks does not work because the clover will not get light.
AI learning factory farming? (Score:2)
Prediction (Score:3)
I have a vision, say 20-30 years from now.
Automated megafarms with few human hands. Owned by corporations that are owned by corporations such that they longer pay taxes. Because the robots are really expensive (they are leased from one of the owning corporation, residing in a tax haven). Turns out that farming is just a loss, and hence exempted from tax. ... One have to wonder why they do it... They would really like to pay tax, but as you can be see, that is just not possible. Instead they have to be subsided. Unless you want the stores to be empty?...
Am I totally off?
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Automated megafarms with few human hands
That's not a vision of the future, that's a vision from ages ago already. Return your crystal ball for warranty it's defective.
Goodies episode, come to feed the animals (Score:2)
People here are probably old enough to have seen it. They visit Uncle Graham's automated farm to feed the animals. Graham gives them a long talk on what is important to modern farmers ... the futures markets. Then they want to feed the animals. It has all been automated, but they can do it manually. They go to the control room and Graham tells them which button to push...
Okay (Score:3)
Farms are already massively automated compared to the past. This takes it a step further.
I don't think farmers are going to shed too many tears about not having to bring in "seasonal migrant workers".
Glider eating AI tractors (Score:2)
Some years ago, I (accidentally) landed a glider in a big field being plowed by a huge tractor. After a while the tractor came straight towards the glider. And as it got closer I could not see anyone driving the tractor. It must have been one of these new GPS guided things!
Anyway, I jumped out of the glider, and fortunately the tractor stopped about a couple of wing spans away. Then the door opened, and out got a small child, maybe 7 years old, that must have been driving the huge machine while peering
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out got a small child, maybe 7 years old, that must have been driving
the huge machine while peering under the steering wheel
Actually it was a 50 year-old midget.
Small wonder (Score:2)
Australia has at least one farm bigger than Wales, if not there, where else?
This will not end well (Score:2)
The AI becomes sentient and turns on the humans like Skynet. It's true. Everything in Australia is trying to kill you.
Obligatory (Score:2)
Ever been down to see Graygarden? I heard it's run by robots. Now ain't that something?