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Robots learning how to dominate fruit-picking industry
Picking fruit is backbreaking, time-intensive labor, so why not get the robots to do it? Good idea, says Vision Robotics, a California company that's figuring out the best way to accomplish a variety of farming tasks, starting with the machine above that handles grapevine-trimming chores in the fall.
The challenge is to create a fruit-picking robot. The latest design proposal uses two separate rolling 'bots, each with its own specialty. The first robot is responsible for finding and noting the position of the various oranges, and calculating the most efficient way to get to them. That information flows to the second robot, which picks those oranges off the tree without damaging them. See a picture of that robot duo on the next page.
This all sounds wonderful until you realize that such machines might eliminate the jobs of thousands of migrant workers. Representatives of the farmworkers have been fighting such mechanization since 1978. Undaunted, groups of orange growers in California have already sunk $1 million into this robot idea, and say they're $5 million away from a working system. Unstoppable on their path toward world domination, it appears the machines are in a good position to win this battle.
Via Wired
By trsim at 12:28 AM ON 06/22/07
This kind of process has obviously been going on for decades. My question in all of this is in making our lives easier through the use of robots, why do we fill our days with more and more work to do? I've asked a few professors of history about this, and the answer is always confusing. In the past, the use and improvement of tools was always with the intention of making the work week easier so that people could fill their time with other endeavors, be it leisure or study. Yet even though we've made our lives easier in some areas, we keep increasing the workload. The answer I have gotten so far has always been, "Well, we redefined work and leisure." ??
I guess what my question comes down to is what's the point in making our lives easier if we're not going to allow ourselves to live easier? Or are we freeing ourselves from some work just to do more work? When do we get to the point where there is no more work left? Or will we just continue to take away work from those on the "low" end, as well as their money?
By nawty at 8:08 PM ON 06/24/07
It all boils down to how cheap total ownership of a set of these devices will be, and how reliable in action they prove. It would certainly cut down on the growers' reliance upon migrant workers, many of which are illegal.
By Laua at 4:41 PM ON 06/16/08
The fruit comes from the land, the sun the rain, millions of years of evolution -- with only minimal contribution by growers, when you consider it in the larger scheme.
Once wealth stops serving the needs of the greater community -- in other words -- once wealth no longer provides jobs -- but only takes from the natural world, it will then be time for society to either tax these land "owners" much more heavily -- or regulate them into organic production to insure that they return as much to the land as they take.
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Laua:
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