Robots to Revolutionize Farming and Ease Labor Woes (Will this solve illegal immigration problem?)

TIME ^ | 07/31/2013 | Gosia Wozniacka and Terence Chea

[SeekAndFind]

SALINAS, Calif. (AP) — On a windy morning in California’s Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a wheeled, metal contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce plants. Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds.

The engineers were testing the Lettuce Bot, a machine that can “thin” a field of lettuce in the time it takes about 20 workers to do the job by hand.

The thinner is part of a new generation of machines that target the last frontier of agricultural mechanization – fruits and vegetables destined for the fresh market, not processing, which have thus far resisted mechanization because they’re sensitive to bruising.

Researchers are now designing robots for these most delicate crops by integrating advanced sensors, powerful computing, electronics, computer vision, robotic hardware and algorithms, as well as networking and high precision GPS localization technologies. Most ag robots won’t be commercially available for at least a few years.

In this region known as America’s Salad Bowl, where for a century fruits and vegetables have been planted, thinned and harvested by an army of migrant workers, the machines could prove revolutionary.

Farmers say farm robots could provide relief from recent labor shortages, lessen the unknowns of immigration reform, even reduce costs, increase quality and yield a more consistent product.

“There aren’t enough workers to take the available jobs, so the robots can come and alleviate some of that problem,” said Ron Yokota, a farming operations manager at Tanimura & Antle, the Salinas-based fresh produce company that owns the field where the Lettuce Bot was being tested.

[jiggyboy]

Because no private corporation wants to spend a GD dime on training for any reason.

[Black Agnes]

Have you ever seen portapotties out there?

[dfwgator]

Carl's Jr. Computer: Enjoy your EXTRA BIG ASS FRIES!

Woman at Carl's Jr.: You didn't give me no fries, I got an empty box.

Carl's Jr. Computer: Would you like another EXTRA BIG ASS FRIES?

Woman at Carl's Jr.: I said I didn't get any!

Carl's Jr. Computer: Thank you! Your account has been charged. Your balance is zero. Please come back when you can afford to make a purchase.

Woman at Carl's Jr.: What? Oh no, NO!

[She hits the machine. An alarm goes off, and a sign appears on the computer saying "WARNING! Carl's Jr. Frowns Upon Vandalism"] Carl's Jr. Computer: I'm sorry you're having trouble. I'm sorry you're having trouble.

Woman at Carl's Jr.: Come on! My kids are starvin'!

Carl's Jr. Computer: [the woman kicks the computer, and it sprays a fast-acting tranquilizer in her face] This should help you calm down. Please come back when you can afford to make a purchase. Your kids are starving. Carl's Jr. believes no child should go hungry. You are an unfit mother. Your children will be placed in the custody of Carl's Jr. Carl's Jr... "--- You, I'm Eating."

[Joe approaches the computer]

Carl's Jr. Computer: Welcome to Carl's Jr. Would you like to try our EXTRA BIG ASS TACO? Now with more MOLECULES!

[dfwgator]

What was that saying about “Idle hands”?

[Disambiguator]

never had a job, have no skills, totally unemployable in the 21st century — what can society do with such large number of people who have nothing to do accept pick up their food allotment at the government food pantry?

I think we have some real-life examples of that scenario right now. Think Detroit.

[count-your-change]

Machine harvest of tomatoes is a good example of the future. Machines pick all the tomatoes at once and sensors tell which ones are red enough to keep, all others are rejected and plowed under again.

While there’s a considerable waste the increased productivity more than pays for it. Likewise for tree crops like walnuts which only require one man on a tractor to pick a whole tree in a few minutes.

[ClearCase_guy]

quietly eliminate part of the population

I've probably read too much dystopian science fiction but, yeah, that's where I see us going. Between Obamacare and UN Agenda 21, I can see a US population of (maybe) 50 million, set up in 50 densely populated urban centers. The leaders live high up in the skyscrapers. The proles live in the lower levels. The countryside is empty and resource extraction is handled by machinery. Society is rigidly controlled, and age or illness becomes a real death sentence.

Many movies have been made on these topics. I see us getting there within my childrens' lifetime.

[SeekAndFind]

VISION BASED FRUIT PICKING ROBOT...

[varyouga]

The machines will do more and more while humans do less. Until one day when humans literally do nothing but get fed, housed and entertained by machines.

The machines will get smarter. Even smarter than most humans someday. Then the machines will realize that WE, with our human nature, are a problem to the future of civilization. Then the fun starts...

By that time machines will likely be composed of engineered semi-biological tissue. Self-replicating Robots with something resembling skin, bone and a brain as complex as ours. They may even conquer us and colonize the entire galaxy. We would be their “creator”. Wouldn't that be something...

[ClearCase_guy]

From wikipedia:

The Butlerian Jihad is an event in the back-story of Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. Occurring over 10,000 years before the events chronicled in his 1965 novel Dune, this jihad leads to the outlawing of certain technologies, primarily "thinking machines", a collective term for computers and artificial intelligence of any kind. This prohibition is a key influence on the nature of Herbert's fictional setting.

Herbert may have coined the name from 19th-century author Samuel Butler, who has the citizens of Erewhon enact a prohibition on machines newer than 270 years fearing that "it was the race of the intelligent machines and not the race of men which would be the next step in evolution."

[Nea Wood]

As Terry Anderson used to say, LA is crawling with illegals, but there’s no strawberry field anywhere around. This won’t solve the illegal immigration problem, but I still welcome it because the illegals now picking the crops don’t know or care anything about sanitation or hygiene, and they are making us sick.

[HiJinx]

Ping!

Click the keyword Aliens to see more illegal alien, border security, and other related threads.

Several good articles today. This one touches on a topic we haven't seen discussed on FR in a very long time...HJ

[GOPJ]

An unintended consequence? Our ‘public servants’ won't be able to shake down farmers for forced ‘donations’...

That's worth the price of innovation right there.

[Regulator]

The UFW fought automation for decades. Jerry Brown helped them by defunding any state research.

But it's happening elsewhere - Washington state, for example - and will bury them in the end.

In the end, it has no bearing on the real problem: only 2% of illegals are in agriculture anymore. Leastways that's whut I read....

PS: Was in Mexico City the other day for biz. Saw lots of employed people downtown!

Not a single white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in those jobs though, and especially no black people (Mexico is notoriously racist).

Funny that.

[Windflier]

Robots doing the jobs illegal aliens won’t do...

[count-your-change]

If robots can replace humans entirely or to a degree increased productivity might well offset increased wastage. In any event fewer workers are going to be needed and a degree from Migrant University just won’t be enough anymore.

[Count of Monte Fisto]

Will this solve illegal immigration problem?

No, since "cheap labor" is of secondary concern. The "cheap labor, subsidized by the taxpayer, is used to bribe GOP business types into going along with open borders. The illegal immigrants are reallyhere to replace the White Christian Middle class that demands liberty, prosperity, and firearms with a servant class of peons like that of any other banana republic.

[AustinBill]

Absolutely correct. Marshall Brain wrote a seminal set of articles about this some time ago in Robotic Nation which I highly recommend.

This is the socio-economic problem of the 21st century which is how to evolve beyond the labor=money equation which has governed life since the industrial revolution. Anyone who things their job is "secure" is fooling themselves. By the mid 21st century 90% or more of today's jobs simply will not exist because they will be automated out of existence.

[hattend]

How does the pizza taste compared to the one’s cooked and prepared by humans?

I would think that if it uses the same ingredients it should taste the same. What does a human do to it that might be different...other than spitting on it?

[ClearCase_guy]

Very interesting stuff at that link.

Thanks!