
Robot can pick tomatoes without bruising them better than humans - adrian_mrd
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/11/root-ai-unveils-its-tomato-picking-robot-virgo.html
======
mc32
This is pretty impressive. If they get good at strawberries and other produce
susceptible to bruising, they’ve got it made with a captive audience of
farmers who will get a tireless 24x7 robot bringing an end to backbreaking
manual labor.

~~~
TheOperator
I've seen people paying twice the minimum wage for the no-skill job of picking
vegetables and still seen farms not get enough takers resulting in the food
rotting on the fields.

Bring on the robots. People hate that work. Literal backbreaking labour.

------
tj-teej
I wonder if this will actually result in better working conditions for the
workers. The Cotton Gin just made cotton more profitable and actually resulted
in much more misery for the working class and slaves at the time.

~~~
challenger22
The gotton gin processed picked cotton, necessitating more pickers. This
machine picks tomatoes, reducing needs for pickers. After picking, all
remaining processing for tomatoes is highly automated/ bulk operations
(trucking, washing, canning or packaging and distributing as fresh produce).

------
JoeDaDude
In the photo, it looks like it is picking plum or cherry tomatoes. Is it able
to harvest heirloom varieties without damage? Will this make it possible to
have better tasting tomatoes at your local store?

~~~
fgkramer
I'm actually interested in how would this actually provide better testing
tomatoes. Are you suggesting it will lower the harvesting cost of tastier
varieties and therefore they will make their way to your local store?

~~~
foxyv
I think the idea is that we could see a price drop in easily bruised but
tastier varieties.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
What about transportation? I always thoughts they use these horrible rock hard
tomatoes because they don't get damaged during transportation, I never really
thought about picking. I was slaving 14 hour days a lot of summers picking
strawberries in a foreign country and I can't recall we ever talked about the
damaged during picking. The main thing was to keep the damaged ones away by
either throwing or by eating them.

------
adultSwim
End jobs, make room for work.

