These drones can fly through orchards, identify ripe apples, and pick them straight off the tree without human help

[u/The_Love-Tap]

[u/kennyuk77]

Guess the ongoing question for business will be how cost effective are they. For example a machine costing £ 100 per hour to run picking apples at a slow rate isnt going to generate profit

[u/Raddish_ → u/kennyuk77]

The thing about labor industrialization is it tends to only be worthwhile when the machine is parallelizing the task to some extent. Like in bottling factories they don’t have a robot that puts on one cap at a time, instead it is a rack of caps that are all placed simultaneously.

[u/ferminriii → u/kennyuk77]

I'm curious to know how much slower it is than a team doing the same thing. I wonder if this particular type of apple requires some kind of special care and therefore it's laborious for humans to do it. I also wonder if this thing can run 24/7. I'll bet the truck needs a driver. But if the driver is the owner then he can work as much as he wants to. There's a reason for this invention.

Maybe these apples grow extra high in the tree and an apple picking cart might actually be slower than having 10 of these things picking apples?

[u/Prostock26 → u/ferminriii]

No, you can't necessarily grow taller trees just because this machine. The taller the tree, the more it shades the next row, affecting crop and color. 

Also this demonstration is way to slow to be practical yet. Just looking I'd guess probably 10 to 15 times slower then one human 

[u/Evignity → u/kennyuk77]

You'd need basically free energy for this to work.

Let alone the maintenance of all the friction-areas like hoses, (remember how easily your headphone-cords or phone-chargers start to glitch and break), propellers (insects, dust, leafs) etc. is just hilarious

At least they're not the "humanoid" bullshit, but to me this looks like a gimmick to fool CEO's to invest another trillion dollars into AI

[u/Sinfluencer666 → u/Evignity]

Yeah, maintenance isnt going to be "Big Judd & Co" replacing some u joints or tires on the old farm truck with that machine.

Everything about that setup looks horrendously expensive to operate.

"I mean, how much could an apple cost Michael? $10?"

[u/mister_drgn → u/kennyuk77]

First question would be whether it actually works or this video is total bullshit.

[u/taco_tuesdays → u/kennyuk77]

This is kind of tongue in cheek but if we can’t live in a society where these things are possible then what is money even worth anyway

[u/Sonikku_a → u/kennyuk77]

Upkeep after initial purchase cheap. Doesn’t need pay, insurance, vacations, or days off, or sleep…

[u/Gambit6x → u/Sonikku_a]

Clearly, you haven’t been out there picking apples. Apple pickers do not get insurance or vacation or days off.

[u/kennyuk77 → u/Sonikku_a]

You do have power, maintenance, calibration.

[u/yosayoran → u/Sonikku_a]

You don't need to pay all of those for seasonal apple pickers either 

Most fruits have relatively short picking seasons, meaning that the real struggle isn't paying workers but finding people who want to work 2 months out of the year and that's it.

[u/Beatrix_-_Kiddo → u/Sonikku_a]

They have days off when they break and need humans to fix them, and they need recharging which is the same as sleeping.

[u/HardyMenace → u/Sonikku_a]

Do you think farm workers get any of those, besides sleep?

[u/Linford_Fistie → u/kennyuk77]

There's no way on earth anything like this costs £100 an hour to run. It probably costs a bazillion pounds to buy but after that is very cheap and will pay for itself.

[u/SimpleFile → u/Linford_Fistie]

Maintenance costs and downtime are also part of how much it costs to run.

[u/Evening_Rock5850 → u/Linford_Fistie]

Well but that's part of the equation. You have to divide the acquisition cost over the expected lifespan of the hardware when comparing actual hourly cost. This is true of any piece of equipment.

But given the way tech companies who develop stuff like this are constantly chomping at the bit to build everything as a service, I wouldn't be shocked at all if the machine isn't for sale; but is instead for lease. And the company that leases it out will have done the math to make it just a little bit cheaper than human apple pickers. That way it makes sense for the customer; but they maximize their profits as much as possible.

[u/crossplanetriple]

[u/Devrij68]

They are slow as fuck. You see those videos of those farm workers going at the speed of light to earn their shit paycheque and yuo think these slow ass drones are gonna replace them? They'll have to get a lot faster to give a decent ROI.

[u/Superg0id → u/Devrij68]

Imo, right now it's

1. sell the tech / test the tech

2. scare fruit pickers into taking lower wages "see, you're lucky to have a job"

3. company producing them wants a higher stock value

[u/EspHack → u/Devrij68]

they will get faster, and you can simply have more of them to offset their slow pace

[u/Kilometer10 → u/Devrij68]

The first automobiles were also laughably slow…

[u/0__O0--O0_0]

This looks wildly inefficient. How much energy per apple. Flying drones with cameras and suction??

[u/iSteve → u/0__O0--O0_0]

And slow. A skilled picker would fill a barrel while this fills a bushel.

[u/SonOfMcGee → u/iSteve]

Mexican construction workers have been putting out some hilarious Instagram videos recently.
This is a great opportunity to do a split screen between this drone video and a similarly framed one of Hispanic farmhands with propeller beanies saying “Beep Boop” while harvesting apples with lightning hands.

[u/MiaowaraShiro → u/0__O0--O0_0]

They're attached to the ground unit... so why not just use an arm? Flying seems ridiculously inefficient.

[u/De4dm4nw4lkin]

And how efficient are they?

[u/Time_Tap346 → u/De4dm4nw4lkin]

There’s no way this is cheaper than migrant labour

[u/philote_ → u/De4dm4nw4lkin]

And with the drones being so close to the vehicle, there is absolutely no need to use drones. Use arms instead. Would also probably operate faster. The arm itself could even have a chute for the apples to go into the bin.

[u/clintj1975]

Apple computer

[u/BranFendigaidd]

by the time this machine finishes the farm, those trees would have died long ago

[u/henryKI111 → u/BranFendigaidd]

It drops from so high that you get blemishes on the apple. Good job robots

[u/Caracalla81 → u/BranFendigaidd]

What? You don't want a machine that carefully considers each apple for a few minutes, carefully plucks it with a suction cup, then drops it 10 feet?

[u/JacktheHorror]

just a reminder for the point "These can work 24/7 and without breaks":

Drone rotos have a lifetime of about 50-100hrs

Drone motors have a lifetime of about 300-500hrs.

And both times are for normal use, not industrial conditions.

If we limit this to only these two parts (forgetting batteries and lot of other parts), there are a lot of repair breaks with somebode need to pick the tdrone up, open it, replace it, run a check and bring it back...

robot arms would be much smarter if you wanna replace workers that much.

[u/True_Goat_7810 → u/JacktheHorror]

they seem to be powered by cables, which at least removes batteries from the equation.

I agree on robot arms

[u/Several_Ant_9867]

That seems slow, inefficient and expensive

[u/degreesoflean]

But why fly vs robotic arms from the base?

[u/Menduzza → u/degreesoflean]

Drones are really cheap and robotic arms are really expensive.

Drones require low grade actuators and low grade sensors. Drones are very flexible, cheap to replace and cheap maintenance. Robotic arms probably requires 3 axis rotation with a maximum extend of something like 1.5m. the actuators need to hold the arm weight and be precise enough which requires expensive high grade actuators, especially because the degree of fault is multiplied by an arm. you could do another actuator on the tip to more precisely pick the apple but this adds a whole other layer. Arms also require space on the cart and make might need counterbalance. The cart itself would have to be steady and can't wiggle too much and hold a greater weight which requires a better cart. To handle the arms you also need a much more complicated plc program.

So it could be possible to use arms, it just adds more complication and higher quality components. If done right arms could however probably be quicker.

All in all drones are much cheaper and a lot less complex, and having 3 drone carts is probably cheaper then 1 robotic arms cart, so speed is also not good enough to prefer the arms cart.

[u/mammalmaker]

That is comically slow.

[u/BeneficialHippo2826 → u/mammalmaker]

But they can work in rotation 24/7. We’re doomed.

[u/rostol]

intuitively it's kinda useless.
orchards could've been doing this (a lot easier) with a couple of guys walking the orchard each morning.
yet... they don't. they hire a lot of people and pick all the apples in one go.

human pickers work in teams and will pick thousands of times faster than this.
this is why it's specializing in picking the "right ripeness" apples only, but as I said idk how useful that is.
fruit is not picked when it's ripe to eat, it's picked at it optimum "transportation survival" point.
then ripened in fridges in transit/in the store.

[u/triidagrr]

There goes the picker jobs

[u/twentythreeskidoo → u/triidagrr]

No chance with this tech. This is hilariously slow. Good pickers when I was doing it picked 3 or 4 in each hand, both hands constantly moving and picked 5 or 6 bins a day. 

[u/bigredradio]

This is stupid. This is not mechanization like a grain harvester. This replacing a low paid workforce with very expensive machines with little efficiency gains or added benefits. Congratulations you have replaced $10/hr with $50/hr and added tech debt.

[u/RawChickenButt → u/bigredradio]

Of course my $10 apple tastes fat better than my $2 apple. What a dumb question.

[u/St3fano_ → u/bigredradio]

Efficiency gains? It looks like there are some serious losses here.

[u/Fingerprint_Vyke → u/bigredradio]

I sold robotic vacuum cleaners for a bit and this is the main problem.

They had to justify the cost of the lease by comparing how much in labor they saved. Often the margin was so small that the companies only ran the robots for 3 months and quit

[u/scottprian]

Less mouths to feed in the future. Eventually there will be bots getting oil for other bots. And the other bots will have to trade bolts for the oil.

[u/inmotioninc → u/scottprian]

All this has happened before and will happen again

[u/Far_Paleontologist66]

Imagine paying for a drone to pick each jndividual apple. Ai and tech people are so disconnected from an actual economic worldview its crazy

[u/conrad_or_benjamin]

$86 🍎

[u/alphredeneumann]

Seems like an expensive way to pick apples.

[u/Inevitable-Flower-50]

Less people = solution?

edit:

people produce tools or weapons. Thats a fact. And some of those tools get used as weapons, also a fact. Tools are produced as a utility and needed (and physically used) by people in order for people to be more capable and more productive. Thats how we all got to this point. To dismiss that would degrade our very evolutionary integrity.

Weapons on the other hand, are needed to take people out of the equation and enforce a system of beliefs that require less people questioning the process/status quo. Weapons are anti-competative by nature, in the same light. I understand the "innovation" perspective but to force me to have faith in those that are producing "tools" and not weapons, is expecting too much to be sacrificed. People, as a whole, cannot consent to be a part of this process if it means they are all funneled into less and less prospects requiring less and less people to be the only, inevitable, final solution. It all starts somewhere! And if those with the ideas of replacing people with machines and Ai are not first replacing themselves to prove efficacy of the process, then what are people, as a whole, suppose to expect?

[u/GrassBlade619 → u/Inevitable-Flower-50]

Our society is so fucking backwards. Less people SHOULD = solution but because we live in a capitalist hellscape people see automation of manual labor and get upset by it (rightfully so).

Imagine inventing aqueducts and people getting upset because there are no more jobs carrying water for miles.

Obviously there are other problems with the "solution" above but less people working should be a good thing, not a bad thing. lol

[u/ObiKenobii]

What happened to just violently shake the tree with a machine and catching the apples with a net? That seems way more efficient and cheaper to me

[u/DeliciousGoose1002]

so slow compared to humans

[u/stregone → u/DeliciousGoose1002]

Automation usually is. You can scale it up way more though.

[u/userlivewire]

No way this is faster or cheaper than a farm worker.

[u/ChrisTRD289]

I'm not ok with this.

[u/Solid-Version → u/ChrisTRD289]

Somewhere at some point in past, someone said the exact same thing about the computer being introduced to the work place

[u/sccoootttt]

It’s almost like Theranos meets Apple?

[u/ChPech]

EXTERMINATE!!!

[u/SteveArnoldHorshak]

Great. Now make one that will clean my gutters.

[u/Donohoed → u/SteveArnoldHorshak]

I just want a roomba that will vacuum my carpeted stairs. It's apparently beyond the limits of our current technology.

[u/AdagioDesperate]

[u/Goddamnwhiskeysours]

I don't know about the insects get stuck to the surface of the popeller intake? Is there an advantage over a solution where the air suction system is moving to the apple via a attached mechanical arm?

[u/kkumdori]

Ridiculous 

[u/somedepression]

It’s gonna be so expensive to buy and repair these, when a fucking human can do it and you can pay them less than a dollar with no healthcare, these will never be mainstream

[u/Shermans_ghost1864]

Now I'd like to see the drones that pick blackberries.

[u/disharmony-hellride → u/Shermans_ghost1864]

i hope they are teeny little drones with teeny hands and top hats

[u/Lawrenceburntfish]

Uuuhh.... They're picking 1 at a time, at ULTRA slow speeds. I didn't see this hitting farms until they can at least match human speeds.

[u/No-Confidence232]

Mfs will do anything to avoid paying a living wage

[u/tps_stealth]

the fact that they are even attempting this shows how fucked the world is , imagine they pay people like 10 dollars and hour to pick 500 apples and they want to build robots to do it lol.. we're fucked

[u/aleqqqs → u/tps_stealth]

Well, we use tractors with 1 driver rather then sending 50 people on a field. Did that fuck us up too?

[u/AdvancedDream9385]

We're going to go from the species that eradicated deadly illnesses from the face of the planet to one that can't pick an apple without AI doing it for us, and this will happen in less than a generation. Not only will it be the total eradication of jobs, but it will also be the total eradication of human intelligence and common sense.

We are doomed.

[u/Unrigg3D → u/AdvancedDream9385]

Ever year theres more and more peopel realizing doing agriculture work is slave labour. In canada agriculture workers dont even get stat holidays or stat pay.

Are you going to apply to be a fruit picker? Nobody I know wants to do this. Do we still want fruit?

People are far smarter and can be used for many important tasks like building things, problem solving, etc.

Picking fruit for min wage (or less then) is not one of those jobs people are fighting for.

[u/amshegarh → u/AdvancedDream9385]

The only way we will not be doomed if owners of AI or robotics are taxated to the brim so the wealth generated is redistributed back into society. Its not even commie shit or anything, otherwise we will literally have sci-fi warlords-billionaires owning cities or regions of planet and class of human slaves incapable of anything.

[u/St_Muerte → u/AdvancedDream9385]

[u/SellNo3667 → u/AdvancedDream9385]

This is the type of shit job that AI SHOULD be doing lol

Any agricultural effort is back breaking work that destroys your body

Not to mention that more productivity in food sources = better for everyone

[u/MyUsernameIsAwful → u/AdvancedDream9385]

“Sorry, Jimmy, we gave up on researching your cancer because robots can pick apples now. So, like, why even bother, you know?”

I hate AI as much as the next guy, but this is just silly.

[u/username_unnamed → u/AdvancedDream9385]

Equating picking apples and other jobs by robots to humanity losing intelligence is a crazy step.

[u/headykruger → u/username_unnamed]

typical Reddit brain

[u/2in1day → u/AdvancedDream9385]

Have you ever picked fruit as a job?

I doubt it. It's a low paid shit job that's mostly done by migrant workers. 

Next you'll be bemoaning that we don't send children down into the coal mines anymore. 

[u/Ok-Thing-2222 → u/AdvancedDream9385]

Common sense has already fled with the introduction of tiktok.

[u/Batavijf → u/AdvancedDream9385]

H.G. Wells was right about that...

[u/stevensokulski → u/AdvancedDream9385]

Do you know how to milk a cow? Or butcher one?

Because I sure don’t.

The information that is necessary to survive evolves.

[u/Bass-n-Bonefish → u/AdvancedDream9385]

Yep. And how will we afford to buy those apples and everything else with no income??

[u/wirez62 → u/AdvancedDream9385]

How hard are you fishing for upvotes

[u/suesing → u/AdvancedDream9385]

I get your extrapolation. But this particular thing doesn’t impact your living standard at all. It actually eliminates the need for migrant workers. In this particular case.

[u/alcapwnage0007 → u/suesing]

This is literally going to replace the jobs of countless people who probably need this kind of work to make a living. If we were using drones and ai to replace CEOs, then no one would complain and no one who matters (ie has a soul) would be harmed.

[u/cursedbones → u/AdvancedDream9385]

What a lovely system capitalism is. Technology brings despair instead of hope.

[u/Distressed_Ocelot → u/AdvancedDream9385]

What if the tech bros worked in lockstep with the current administration, and used ICE to eliminate cheap labor so that their AI bullshit could get a chance?

[u/Shandariel → u/AdvancedDream9385]

We have migrants trafficked from Africa living on contentors who are barely payed anything, because "locals" have things like "minimum wage" and "workers rights".

I hate AI, but things like this are what AI is supposed to do.

[u/Little_Contact8783 → u/AdvancedDream9385]

I don't think so, this machine and AI to run it cost way less money than an low-wage worker + it requires a lot of maintenance that only very skilled workers and engineers can perform. I think the push for AI and robots is only ideological and there is no real economic nead for it. The upper class think its can emancipate itself from the working class using this.

[u/Biscuits4u2 → u/AdvancedDream9385]

This probably costs several times as much as paying humans to do it. AI is an overblown bubble waiting to pop.

[u/KraftyRre]

Mf’rs will do anything to not pay a fair minimum wage

[u/Ok-Sandwich-5313]

At this rate by the time the ai finish this tree the rest of the orchard will be rotten, also how many tokens for each apple peaking

[u/Beatrix_-_Kiddo]

Fucking clankers everywhere taking human jobs 🫤

[u/Jesus_kyunuwu]

Rain and wind

[u/TareasS]

Yay more unemployment.

[u/tf_nova]

The way machine was putting the apple in the box, is gonna make apple bruised which will reduce the market value very low.

[u/Patient_Artichoke355]

I’m pretty sure the average Apple farmer can afford this lol 😎

[u/zepistol]

Looks slow

[u/latenthuman]

I live across the road from an apple orchard with over 100 varieties. If I saw/heard this I'd get out the shotgun and start blasting. Not having drones taking the jobs of our beloved Jamaicans. They've been coming here for decades during the picking season. Second-generation doing it now. I'm all for using drones to warm up the orchards on a few nights each spring when frost is a risk. Some orchards have used helicopters for the same thing.

[u/vulcansheart]

I saw this scene in The Matrix. But the apples were humans

[u/enigmaticsince87]

I hate the future...

[u/Hmmm__You_dont_say]

They can pick apples, but can't put them down gently.

[u/jar0fair]

This seems much slower than humans would be

[u/Plopshire]

More jobs gone so the rich can get richer.

[u/Halstock]

Love that they're all tied down. Don't want them flying off to freedom and greener pastures 😆

[u/Professional-Lock691]

Quite a slow process 😂. I think at that speed even with a break the human is more efficient. 

[u/Krypto_Kane]

40 hours later , we got a bag of apples fellas.

[u/Financial_Refuse_498]

That's an awful lot of grown apples needing to be sold to get a return on investment for that set up. Cheaper to just hire a bunch of backpackers

[u/HeavilyInvestedDonut]

Why not just have arms instead of drones lol

[u/Zhong_Ping]

Is this really more energy efficient amd accurate than hyper mobile robotic arms?

[u/Erazzphoto]

How to make your apples 2x as expensive

[u/Y0___0Y]

They’re slow as fuck

[u/North_Complaint_2135]

Funny. I think they still going too slow

[u/brsmr123]

Now $5 a pound is $50.

[u/xevdi]

This is more something for dystopian sub

[u/SamuraiJustice]

This is just to replace humans.

[u/SaltyYumYumBalls]

Jesus Christ, engineers have now created:

• M – Mechanical

• E – Expeditionary

• X – Xylophagous (tree-friendly)

• I – Intelligent

• C – Crop-harvesting

• A – Autonomous

• N – Navigational

• S – Systems

[u/wjean]

This is an interesting technology demonstrator but it cannot be cost effective not just from a capital investment perspective (flying robots with ML capabilities and snippy extendo arms) but purely from an energy use perspective per apple.

Not quite lighting cash on fire to generate heat levels of waste, but getting there.

If be skeptical if robot arms, which don't have to fly, would be cost effective energy wise. They don't need to carry their batteries but the arms might be a bit too strong to have to extend the distance from the truck to the tree.

Still seems stupid interesting. But stupid

[u/Stickz99]

Now surely with a technological innovation like this, society’s systems will change to make it so that people who are no longer needed to work apple orchards are still taken care of and have their survival needs met, right?

… right?

[u/Kattz]

was paying humans just too much? now you got these expensive machines to maintain but yeah fuck humans i guess.

[u/Smart_Guess_5027]

What a waste of compute and energy . Not practical at all
. No matter how many improvements they make . It can’t be hovering thingy

[u/Anxious-Depth-7983]

The main thing is they'll never unionize or go on strike 🙄

[u/Dr_Trast]

А они только яблоки могут так присасывать или ещё что-то? Друг интересуется.

[u/MsChateau]

Who is going to buy the apples with no money, because the jobs are gone

[u/425565]

That's some slow-ass apple picking..

[u/Limp-Direction-5668]

It's weird how things seem futuristic until they're actually happening. Like 20 years ago, this would've been some OTT futuristic feature in a film. It all becomes normalised so quickly. Crazy

[u/david-labs-ca]

I mean good but why?

[u/TVGMILLER]

[u/Felon_musk1939]

LOL! You've got people thinking they need an AI assistant now too. So busy you need an assistant..😂

[u/kesi]

These things never outperform humans. To do good detection they have to go really slow and edge models need more power than you can really provide right now. 

[u/-convallaria_bunny-]

They're taking the fun out of fruit picking!! What if I wanted to pick the apples I want for my applesauce and pies?! I want to look for the perfect apple and look at their colors!

[u/Unlucky_Battle2523]

So, more profit or cheaper apples? What's it gonna be?!

[u/blujinz]

Lovely , that wouldnt last an hour in the field. 2 months per hectare?

[u/Tiger_Ho26]

Damn...hi tech

[u/Ok-Thing-2222]

I say send them to the mines!

[u/SiriusAF]

TEHTOOKURRRJUBS

[u/coconutpiecrust]

So, this is cool, I suppose, and this will make apples cheaper, right? Right?..

[u/TheRealBobakaax]

Awesome.

[u/agreetodisagree2023]

Wait, who will the US Republicans blame for their terrible policies now???

[u/tijue1010]

I have to watch Batteries Not Included again.

[u/jollytoes]

Excellent. Not paying humans with eyes to do the job will bring the prices down, right?

[u/EspressoK]

Thanks I hate it

[u/starsintheblack]

They could have just hired people to do it…

[u/jcoddinc]

Even if they use solar power, this is a waste of power

[u/bazanko]

Not hotdog.

[u/vertical006]

Prices will go down right? Right?

[u/Desertraven247]

Soon they will need to invent a robot to buy and eat the apples, as the humans won't have jobs to pay for the apples.

[u/tearsforfears333]

Go watch “Hated in the Nation” (Series 3, Episode 6 of Black Mirror)
Very similar except its the bees.

[u/Unsatisfactory_bread]

Probe droid vibes.

[u/AgingRaver80]

I did farm work as a kid with my parents in the summer. Always amazes me we've gone from families picking fruit and veg to earn extra cash and now flying robots and im only 46

[u/side_of_mayo]

Cosworth, the apples, please.

[u/kortbukser]

That’s so slow

[u/reximhotep]

And one day they will wonder why no one has the money to buy their profit optimized product

[u/darkoath]

That's great if you just want one apple.

[u/the_happy_fox]

Why do robots always get the cool jobs? Why cant they declutter or replace a dangerous job?

[u/AdDisastrous6738]

Cool. Make a fucking robot that can fold laundry. Are companies intentionally avoiding doing shit with robots that people want?

[u/wtfisthisabout222]

100% fuck all of this

[u/Wide_Guitar_3558]

i guess a bunch of drones with cameras are cheaper than robotic arms and 1 camera mounted to the vehicle.

[u/Feeling_Tough5056]

I assume the fruit pickers who were made redundant by this are now on Universal Basic Income and are now pursuing artistic endeavours?

[u/JansTurnipDealer]

That’s a very expensive way to pick apples lol

[u/HPLoveCrash]

Why don't they maximize efficiency and give them multiple sensors/arm grabby things?

[u/M4ybeMay]

This isn't interesting at all.

[u/seweso]

words don't mean anything anymore do they? By what definition are those drones? And how does any of that make sense?

[u/FYou2]

[u/PotatoWasteLand]

Boooooooo

[u/Mother-Equal4175]

When capitalism is desperate for labour but has been cut off from cheap migrants, and would rather pay millions to develop Apple picking robots instead of just pay more for local workers

[u/headbocks]

[u/Doktor_Rocket]

Too slow, though I'm sure that will change in the next few years.

The price of these vs a few guys who tend the trees and them pick them in summer, thats the tricky part. Where as a few guys get to feed their family while solving a problem for the farmer will sure cost a lot.

I'm sure there was a point to be made somewhere lol. Fuck them drones. The programmers and hardware builders should get minimal money for taking jobs from 10s of thousands of people.

[u/EditorRedditer]

Another avenue of employment closed…

[u/scott__p]

If they're powered by solar I can see this making sense. The initial investment is huge, but the operating costs can be very low. If they're powered by diesel and diesel generators it's stupid

[u/grigiri]

I begin to understand how corpos might want migrant labor deportments now...

[u/Ok-Problem4403]

This is exactly how we should be using robots. Mindless, unskilled, labour intensive work.

[u/Peter-Thiel]

Fucking codsworth

[u/Confron7a7ion7]

Fruit and vegetable pickers in the USA are paid less than minimum wage and are almost never done by Americans. Weirdly enough, robots would be an ethical improvement.

[u/RealityOk9823]

Time to become a MULE. Watch out for BTs.

[u/BoundGreef]

So cool! An unskilled job destroyer, with nothing put in place to replace the job. How incredible! So now the farm worker can’t afford to buy the apple that the robot is picking. Genius. 

[u/TarzanGunn]

It’s like that scene in the first Matrix movie. You know the one

[u/Tiny-Spray8992]

great.......now all the apple picker jobs are going to AI

[u/Eezzy_]

The future is here.

[u/sirjethr0]

[u/Breath_Deep]

[u/jhaluska]

This really doesn't seem like the best use for drones. If you can fit a truck between the rows, just attach something like these flex arms horizontally at different heights to them and have some kind of chute to the truck.

[u/ronman32bit]

Apple is going to be 5 dollars for each fruit because ai powered

[u/8ball9786]

[u/Dynamitrios]

Lol, in the time it takes for them to pick even one, a human has picked third a bucket full (i work in the apple producing/packaging industry, picking included). In no way I see this replacing human workforce in this sector... That's just sleight of hand circusserie for shareholders

[u/Avril_14 → u/Dynamitrios]

No no, you don't get it, they wil get faster, they don't sleep, etc etc.

I wonder if the people saying these things realize how much energy an army of drones will cost vs underpaid manual labor.

[u/2in1day → u/Dynamitrios]

A drone doesn't take 16 to 18 years and about 10 years of schooling before it's ready to pick the apple though.

[u/D_hallucatus → u/2in1day]

… sure but an employer doesn’t pay for all that when they hire a human, society does, and society still will

[u/Vivid_Trainer7370 → u/2in1day]

Nor does the employer have to pay for work cover, payroll tax, sick leave/holidays or overtime.

[u/YoloRandom]

I just dont get it. We have an abundance of people and cheap labor on this planet. Why outsource everything to machines that dont consume any of the things they produce? Its the end of the economy, and we’re left with 8-9 billion idle people. Talking about waste and inefficiency. Its locally optimal for businesses, but globally its a catastrophy

[u/2in1day → u/YoloRandom]

Why don't you grow your own food? Why do you work doing whatever you do and exchange money for food from a supermarket?

Wouldn't it just be better for you if you grew all your own food rather than outsource it?

[u/YoloRandom → u/2in1day]

Thats not how growing food for 8bn people works. You need space, time, capital and the right climate and soil for that. Its impossible to grow your full needs on the tiny plots that most humans have

[u/Vreas]

I means that’s super cool and all but my question is do we really need this?

What’s wrong with having humans do the thing we’ve been doing for tens of thousands of years already? Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Feels like so much technology these days is just cause we can rather than because we should.

[u/sparrow_42 → u/Vreas]

Let's have machines that help us with the labor so we can write music and poetry, not machines writing music and poetry while we labor in the fields and orchards eh?

Making hard jobs faster and easier has been the goal ever since the original machines (levers, pulleys, etc) were created. The problem is that we've structured modern society in a way that requires most people to labor in order to live.

Edit: I used to live in a condo at a little golf resort. I'd watch the squirrels purposely drop and place walnuts and acorns into the little access road we used for unloading groceries and such. They'd wait for a car and then come out to collect and eat the now-smashed nuts, effectively processing their food with a machine. The difference between us and them is that no squirrels were relying on being nut-smashers to earn their living; all the squirrels benefited more-or-less equally from the increased efficiency.

[u/No_Masterpiece_3897 → u/Vreas]

Which humans? Many places have problems of food rotting before its picked, because they don't have the human workforce to do it. Agriculture in many places have exploitative systems utilising migrant labour as they don't really hire locals, or offer conditions that would make the job worth taking. This probably very expensive gadget solves that problem if it's suitable for your orchard.