
Machine learning is gradually changing modern agricultural practices - jonbaer
http://precisionagricultu.re/how-machine-learning-is-gradually-changing-modern-agricultural-practices/
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bitL
What am I worried about here is that ML would eliminate some hidden factors
allowing survival of biosystems in its goal to increase yields. Nowadays there
might be some inefficiency with side effects allowing survival of required
species; with more efficient models wrt profit those effects might disappear,
causing hard-to-explain issues. An example from the past was when mountainous
national parks banned certain animals from feeding on grass within park
boundaries, leading to disappearance of rare flowers that needed trimmed grass
surroundings to survive.

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taeric
The headline is amusingly overly modest. Statistics and science have changed
agricultural practices in extreme ways many times. As have simple economics.
Machine learning doing the same shouldn't be a surprise, since it should just
be seen as a continuation of those practices.

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mdlthree
One could also say that agriculture changed machine learning via RA Fischer,
pioneer of modern statistics -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher#Rothamsted_Exper...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher#Rothamsted_Experimental_Station,_1919-1933)

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Amygaz
This article is a very light without any concrete examples. (edited typos)

This field is lot more about hardware and software automation, where AI can
and already has a big role.

The ML part, frankly, is nothing new. With the significant exception that more
people are doing it, including groups of people who would traditionally not do
it, such as farmers and technologists. It used to be mostly academics and
large companies with research teams.

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macawfish
I wanna see "modern agricultural science" pushing the boundaries of ecology,
modelling complex, diverse ecosystems with a goal of cultivating them in
economically viable ways!

I don't think "machine learning" is the right tool for the job though.

