The robot age is here! That is if you believe what scientists are trying to tell us. Shouting and waving your hands in the air about a new thing is par for the course. We have heard it all before: mew thing, great leap forward, and so on.
Apparently, the new gadget is a robot for use on a farm. Developed in Australia, the machine wanders around the farm "keeping an eye" on crops and pests. It is guided by hyperspectral cameras and sensors. The initial field test, forgive the pun, was at a vegetable growing property where beetroot, spinach and onions are grown.
The robot has a mechanical arm for pulling up weeds - wow productivity will go through the roof! Just how fast will this thing go? Unfortunately, it moves very slowly. Scientists say it will free up staff from manual labor. This is absolute rubbish. How does it know what is a weed and what is a valuable plant?
Unless it does high-tech stuff it will not prove to be beneficial. If it can detect pests and diseases very early, it will be useful. However, manual labor does take a high level of intelligence. You must know how the job is to be done usually without supervision. Scientists wrongly believe that farm workers are dumb.
Science by Ty Buchanan
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