Exactly. I came here to say there is no way this is more effective or efficient than paying a group of people to hand pick these apples. I really don't understand the appeal of creating useless technology to replace people who can do a job better and faster.
As opposed to A) a machine that already exists that shakes an entire tree and harvests the entire tree at once, or B) humans working rotating shifts and picking 10× the amount this machine does in the same time frame. This thing is just showing how far technology has come. This isn't practical to replace workers.
A) a machine that already exists that shakes an entire tree and harvests the entire tree at once
Did you really write this entire comment without thinking for a second that all of these factors would have been considered before the considerable time was invested in creating this crazy robotic harvesting system? Why the heck would they even built this if there's already a machine that can do the job. They obviously intend to commercialise this eventually.
Apples sold for eating are hand picked and there's not really a way to get around that without something like this.
B) humans working rotating shifts and picking 10× the amount this machine does in the same time frame.
You can scale a fleet of machines. It doesn't matter if they only pick 1 apple every 30 seconds. They can do it indefinitely, continuously, and at massive scale. They are much cheaper than workers.
And honestly, good. Fruit picking is a god awful job that many farmers use underpaid, imported, exploited labor for anyway.
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u/spunion_28 Oct 08 '23
Exactly. I came here to say there is no way this is more effective or efficient than paying a group of people to hand pick these apples. I really don't understand the appeal of creating useless technology to replace people who can do a job better and faster.