Robotic fruit pickers, this is a neat idea, but really, they should think less about the robot and more about the plant. I've been thinking about this for some time now, I want a big fun farm in the future so that I can live really independantly, and I'm thinking about not just one or two huge robots, but a whole herd of little cute robots, each that can do one or two jobs, and we all cooperate together to grow food.
The main one that I've been thinking about are weeding robots, instead of doing it like we do now with big machines weeding once a month, I'll have a whole bunch of tiny robots that will be roaming the strawberry and vegetable patches every day, they'll be solar powered and will just slowly go around weeding little weeds when they grow, rather than waiting for the weeds to get big enough for a big machine to weed them. They'll be mostly A-Life based, but will also be hooked into the network of computer brains over the farm when they come across things they don't know how to deal with, it'll have emergent behaviour and will just slowly learn, like us humans do. They'll all be solar powered and will work on moving slowly and purposefully, instead of just steaming through like the machines that we have now do.
Really, we need to totally rethink machines and computers, make them more fun and cute, slow moving tai-chi masters that are in touch with their inner chi. Remember, rocks have chi, so computers and robots do as well, and we should all be working together for full enlightenment of the planet, not just one species.
Robots and computers are a new species, and they are on the same quest as all of us, just because we created them doesn't mean we shouldn't respect them and have compassion for them.
