RE: https://mastodon.social/@BrianHarrod/116208675079411172

The terrible thing about this is people will think this is advanced but it's the worst use of AI and robotics in farming and farming is one of those things that can be helped by AI and robotics just not by getting humanoid robots to pick potatoes worse than a human :)

I suppose I should now give an example of good things AI can bring to farming.

Imagine an organic polytunnel with microphones that detect when greenfly are multiplying and informs the farmer it might be time to release extra ladybird larvae into the tunnel.

Or detects the sound slugs munching (they live in the mulch you added for the ladybirds to live in) hits the level they need dealing with and suggests nematodes.

AI can make clean, urban farming useful.

#solarpunk #organic

although my first introduction to AI in farming meeting somebody selling off a bunch of really cool PC based terminals that had been installed into Fords biggest tractors to guide them by GPS.

The only part that worked was the GPS, mostly, kept the tractors inside the fields but it never performed even as well as the phd student who had never driven a tractor before the project.

This was the 90's though.

As long as you keep techbros, megacorps and money out of the project though ;)

yeah, another addition here. :)

The good AI exists on the edge and uses low powered devices that can be deployed anywhere for not much money and run entirely local inference engines that got configured once using commodity PC hardware and can be completely open.

Not only don't you rent the engine but you can own the engine, the data, everything and all of it can exist in the commons.

This is why I get annoyed that people think LLM when they hear AI

#solarpunk #commons #foss #socialGood

@naturepunk You don't have to keep using the term #AI for that. What you might use sounds like a #NeuralNetwork trained specifically for that purpose. Machine learning is another fitting term. I know a lot of research project that used this technique and I think all can work without labelling it AI. It's just a tool for humans to use, after all.

Artificial intelligence promises and claims to be more. In our society, intelligence justifies agency. People can be denied agency by disputing their intelligence. Plants and animals are similarly subjugated. On the other hand, tech oligarchs want their #LLM|s to be seen as intelligent because they want to give them agency and take it away from workers.

I say the term AI is loaded and burnt. We don't need AI for #solarpunk

@skaphle @naturepunk Yes I agree, there are a lot of useful #MachineLearning models, #NeuralNetwork|s and even somewhat autonomous robots that don't claim to be AI.
@leamusi @skaphle Yup, I agree. ML is by far the better term to use for this kind of software.