Comment by pixl97
1 day ago
Hello. Ex-Iowegian here with family that owns large farms.
>Farmers are already using computers to guide decisions.
For way longer than most people expect. I remember reading farming magazines in the 80's showing computer based control for all kinds of farming operations. These days it is exceptionally high tech. Combines measure yield on a GPS grid. This is fed back into a mapping system for fertilization and soil amendment in the spring to reduce costs where you don't need to put fertilizer. The tractors themselves do most of the driving themselves if you choose to get those packages added. You can get services that monitor storm damage and predict losses on your fields, and updated satellite feed information on growth patterns, soil moisture, vegetation loss, and more. Simply put super high automation is already available for farming. I tell my uncle his job is to make sure the tractor has diesel in it, and that nothing is jammed in the plow.
When it comes to animal farming in the mid-west, a huge portion of it is done by contracts with other companies. My uncle owns the land and provides the labor, but the buildings, birds, food, and any other supplies. A faceless company setting up the contract like now, or an AI sending the same paperwork really may not look too much different.
The farmers I know say you are throwing money away driving your tractor at planting time. If the autostreer is broken they will wait - risking rain and needing to switch to a lower yielding but faster growing seed - instead of drive themself. even in that worst case the autosteer is likely to make more money than driving their tractor now.
auto steer often can get another row in without over crowding. auto steer also shuts off ineividual rows as you cross where you planted already (saving thousands of dollars in seed)
What I got from this comment is that John Deere could be a competitor with Tesla for FSD. (/s, but only slightly)
I have to say I work for John Deere to discuss this more, even though I don't speak for the company.
A DOT (I'm not sure which DOT) just did a press release on how they used John Deere guidance on a snow plow which allowed them to clear the road in a blizzard so an ambulance could get to the hospital (I was surprised they can get enough of a GPS signal, but apparently they did). Auto steer allows someone to drive a plow when you can't see the pavement/lines without first having to memorize the road by the posts/trees on the side of the road.
However there is a big difference between Deere auto steer and Tesla FSD: safety. Tesla has sensors to see if someone/something is in the way and algorithms to go around - critics claim they don't work well, but they work infinity times better than the complete lack of any of those sensors/algorithms in Deere's system. If you are using the Deere system it can hold a lane to within a couple cm - but you have to look out the window constantly because it will just drive right into anything in the way. This is good enough for farming (nobody/nothing is going to be in front of the tractor anyway), or the DOT (they can't see the road at all, but they still have trained operators ready to hit the brake) - but Tesla is going after the "you can take a nap" market.
I wouldn't be surprised if Deere has more miles of self driving than Tesla and Waymo combined, and a better safety record. However this is only because Deere's system is used in situations where the odds are against there being anything to harm in the first place, while Tesla/Waymo are trying for the much harder open road with who knows what in the way.
Now Deere is working on the full autonomous solutions, I'm not sure what the status is (I think some are out there for use in very limited situations). I'm not allowed to say anything more about these plans (I know some is public but I'm not sure what)