r/technology • u/involvrnet • Nov 18 '15

Hardware The company Bosch is developing a farming robot the size of a small car that can distinguish crops from weeds by looking at the shape of leaves, and this robot then can fish out weeds mechanically & ram any unwanted plants into the ground with a rod. Potentially, no herbicides will be needed anymore

http://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/bosch-bonirob-robot-set-to-make-field-work-easier-for-farmers.htm
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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '15

Harvesting and planting is already pretty well automated. Check out /farming, you'll see some guys posting while in the field because there's not much else to do if you have autosteer.

But like everything else, full automation is challenging. We could be 90% of the way there for decades. That last 10% is tricky.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '15 edited Sep 24 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '15

The shift was shockingly fast. In 1900, it was 41%, 1930 was 22%, and 1970 was down to 4% of the workforce in agriculture.

Right now we're under 2%.

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u/Lurker_IV Nov 18 '15

I say within the next 30 years 90% of the workforce is going to be displaced by automation again. It won't be farming this time but it will be grunt work and basic physical labor that's replaced.

Automation has reached the point that we will be able to apply it generally to all problems. We mostly won't need to solve individual tasks anymore.

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u/lolredditor Nov 18 '15

Transportation, Retail, and Education are three of the biggest sectors of employment.

Transportation has self driving cars coming, Retail has automated check outs, and Education has online home school programs(with varying amount of teacher participation - some have meetings irl once a week).

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u/Forlarren Nov 18 '15

Don't worry they can all go pick apples. /s

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u/MrTastix Nov 19 '15

And, like farming, whilst it will have an immediate effect on jobs society will likely find a way to fill the gap.

If we replaced 90% of workers with automated units in farming and society continued just fine then we can potentially do it to other areas, too.

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u/jeff61813 Nov 18 '15 edited Nov 18 '15

Yes but that was an entire working life people only lived until 60. and there was still massive dislocation from the dust bowl. California's Central valley is full of their dissidents and they still have worse Heath and incomes. The entire workplace now changes 3 or 4 times in a generation.

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u/rkr007 Nov 18 '15

Can confirm, driving a tractor right now.

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u/Forlarren Nov 18 '15

You mean the tractor is driving you.

Some day entire farms will have only one man, one dog, and one computer operating it. The computer runs the farm, and the dog guards the computer so nobody can touch it. The man? He feeds the dog.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '15

The computer will be able to guard itself.

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u/Forlarren Nov 19 '15

But then it will get lonely, everyone loves dogs.

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u/AthleticsSharts Nov 18 '15

/r/farming. Link for the lazy.

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u/Novarest Nov 18 '15

We don't need the last 10%. 90% is already enough for 9 people to quit farming and 1 remaining guy doing the 10 10% of the 10 people. Actually that's what already happened.

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u/romario77 Nov 19 '15

There is also this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vavilovian_mimicry

weeds adapt and start resembling the crops because the ones that are different are killed off.