Are farming robots the world's next major computer platform?

The 3rd Agricultural Revolution was defined by our desire to control the natural environment. The 4th Agricultural Revolution will be defined by our desire to increasingly understand and work with the natural environment.

Farming robots, a defining feature of the 4th Agricultural Revolution will be one of the next major computer platforms.

Whilst humanity has made huge strides in the ways that computers interact with computers, to the extent that we now walk around with globally connected supercomputers in our pockets and think nothing of it, the next great frontier in human progress will be changing the way that computers interact with the natural world.

This revolution is in its early days, and so it can sometimes be difficult for people to envisage what the future might look like and how these new tools will change the way that we think, not only about food and farming, but also about the natural world more broadly. Farming robots focused on the production of crops will lead the way for these new technologies because in many ways this is one of the easier use cases for an outdoor robot. 

A useful analogy for what the future of this new computer platform might look like is to examine the trajectory of one the last major computer platforms to change the world - the mobile phone.

Mobile phones have been a major computer platform for the last 20 years because of what Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz calls ‘the double flywheel’ effect. After the launch of the App Store in 2008, there was the ability for creators and developers to develop new applications for our smartphones. This created a virtuous cycle, in which there was an incentive for the computer platform (the phone) to constantly improve and likewise an incentive for the development of ever more sophisticated applications. For an indication of the power of this double flywheel, look at how the capabilities of a phone have changed over the last two decades when compared to, for example, the washing machine or the car. 

The way these technologies work today is largely recognisable with the way they worked in 2000. The way a phone works is almost completely unrecognisable over the same time period, and this is because phones became computer platforms.

Farming robots, the world’s next major computer platform, will have the same transformative capabilities.

When the first mobile phones were developed in the 1980s they were large, unwieldy and expensive. They were developed with one main function in mind - the ability to make calls. No-one envisaged what they would become. 

Today, farming robots are at the same level of progression as the mobile phones of the 1980s. They are expensive to make and they are really only being used by innovators and early adopters.

Another key comparison is that the farming robots of today are largely being developed to replicate the existing capabilities of today’s machines, in the same way that the mobile phone had the original aim of solely enabling calls on the go. 

Like mobile phones though, as the technology develops they will become much more widely adopted. The cost of production will reduce dramatically and farming robots will start to become mainstream. A key advantage in the development cycle is that whilst phones had to wait for the internet and cross platform communication to be created, farming robots have all of these developments plus the addition of Artificial Intelligence to build on top of from the start. This is not a process that will take 40 years, as it did with mobile phones - we anticipate this transformation happening in half of that time.

As farming robots become more widely adopted, so they will become more powerful. Interconnected, mobile supercomputers, which is what farming robots will become, will begin to communicate with other robots across farms and internationally, which will lead to an exponential growth curve in machine learning. Just as phones became digital communication platforms, so farms will become fully digitised entities. Per Plant FarmingTM, a system of managing each plant individually throughout its life cycle, will become the norm. Very quickly a gap will open up between the performance of a farm that is farming in isolation, using outdated methods, vs a farm that is operating a Per Plant FarmingTM system, farming as part of an interconnected learning network.

But the key breakthrough, as with mobile phones, will be the creation of something that enables a double flywheel - a farming equivalent of the App Store.

These mobile computer platforms, highly accurate farming robots, will enable sensors and applications to be deployed far more efficiently than has ever previously been possible. This will lead to a surge of innovation in the industry and developing new applications for computers to interact with the natural world will become one of the most exciting, and lucrative, fields for the most talented people to work in. 

In turn this will lead to an explosion in the usability and desirability of farming robots. These mobile computers will move on from being functional tools towards being an essential companion for every decision on a farm, and they will support operators with many of the activities. 

By 2040, Per Plant FarmingTM will become the dominant farming system in the world, for any crop on a farm of any size. The farming robots of 2040 will be globally connected supercomputers, like the smartphones of today. Smartphones are incredible technologies, but we don’t think of them like that - we think of them as being normal.

What could be possible for the future of our farming industry when these supercomputer farming robots become normal technologies?

Could yields of our crops double? Could the cost of producing our food halve? Could synthetic inputs reduce by 10x or more?

I think all of the above, with the addition of a whole new realm of capabilities which are yet to be imagined.

It’s an exciting time to be working in farming and food.