New Farming Technology is Allowing 200,000 Weeds To Be Killed Per Hour With Lasers, But Is This a Good Thing?

Here is another article which I ran into on Facebook. It was posted by a guy who is a big fan of science, and so I usually like those articles.

However, I am not sure that this one is reporting strictly good news. It is about farming technology, and how we now have farming robots which can kill 200,000 weeds per hour with lasers. 

Don't get me wrong: it's a scientific achievement, clearly. Yet another mark of just how far our scientific thinking and discoveries have taken us, and the growing list of things that we can now achieved which would have seemed impossible not long ago. 

Still, anytime that I see an article boasting about how our technology can now kill hundreds of thousands of something in record time - over 200,000 weeds per hour in this case - I have to wonder. Because the fact of the matter is, our collective track record when it comes to trying to alter our planet in some way for our convenience has not exactly been good. Sometimes, it is a bit too easy getting caught up with marveling at what we managed to achieve without asking ourselves if it is indeed good that we achieved it. Look at the atomic bomb as a perfect example. Yes, it was undeniably a huge feat requiring the very best of our scientific minds at the time. But it altered everything, indeed, even all of human history. Since then, the prospect of living - or rather, surviving - a nuclear holocaust has seemed to stand as a very distinct possibility for us all. Indeed, when you look at all of the post-apocalyptic movies and television shows and books and other such things that we watch for "entertainment," you almost get the feeling like we are preparing for such a possibility, or maybe such an eventuality. 

So this time, while marveling at the science, and how it seems so good on the surface, I approach it also with caution. Because while this guy was celebrating the scientific progress that made such headlines possible, I cannot help but wonder if there are hidden costs (not literal costs, but figurative one) to this which we do not presently see, but which will only become clearer to us over time.  

Farming robot kills 200,000 weeds per hour with lasers  A person can weed about one acre of crops a day. This smart robot can weed two per hour. farming robot Credit: Carbon Robotics  By Kristin Houser October 19, 2022:

https://www.freethink.com/robots-ai/farming-robot?fbclid=IwAR1BMRxhLO9G2yigBTSNp_zEByL2RFCWyXUf3QxLXU6VZI0br3jt9320rSQ