This is ridiculous but I'd rather see people going this route than spraying glyphosate or some other poison. That said, the root of this is a dangerous kind of hubris.
The idea of weeds is a tragic fallacy. There are some "weeds" that are selling for up to $15/lb (nettles, lambs quarter). Most weeds are beneficial for cooking and herbal medicine. And most any weed can have some kind of beneficial role in the garden.
Same thing goes for "pests". One plant's pest is another plant's companion.
Yet people are all but obsessed with exterminating misunderstood creatures from their local ecosystems. In my view, this robot is not so far off in the grand scheme of things from a robot that goes around killing other animals and even people, based on shallow, superficial misunderstandings of another being's potential.
I wish as much engineering effort went into understanding as it does into stuff like this.
Lets not get hyperbolic - folks pull plants for a local monoculture of beneficial botany. That's all. Its not a skynet extermination program or anything.
Heck, I pull volunteer flowers from my flower bed if they don't jibe with this years' layout. Its not about what's a 'weed'. Its about what I want in this here bed, and what I want in that one over there.
On one hand, I feel you. Actually, I think a "weeding robot", programmed well, is a much better alternative to the chemical/GMO program.
But weeding as an act of moderate human selection isn't what irritates me. It's peoples' blind acceptance of an entire false taxonomy of "good" vs "bad" plants/organisms. It's dualistic and dangerous in the long run. It's stupidity posed as common sense. It's a kind of eugenics that's directed not just at humans but at entire ecologies.
Right now what Monsanto is doing with chemical resistant plants is unconscionable. The glyphosate scheme is obscene. It's worse than some skynet extermination program. In the midst of a massive loss of the earth's sustaining biodiversity, we have unchecked corporate powers playing out obscene world domination plans. The stakes are too high. Why do people feel so nonchalant about the Roundup scheme? Why do we eat their corn? Cause they're only killing weeds.
There's a massive extinction happening right now. What are we doing? Programming robots to decrease biodiversity.
My parents used to make me weed our yard as a chore and a punishment. I still harbor an irrational contempt for the sow thistle you see all around southern California.
I heard someone, a successful ecologist or chef or landscape artist I believe, once say their parents wouldn't let them pick a weed unless they could identify it.
That struck me as a truly brilliant idea. I think it also helps combats that fallacy you've pointed out.
The idea of weeds is a tragic fallacy. There are some "weeds" that are selling for up to $15/lb (nettles, lambs quarter). Most weeds are beneficial for cooking and herbal medicine. And most any weed can have some kind of beneficial role in the garden.
Same thing goes for "pests". One plant's pest is another plant's companion.
Yet people are all but obsessed with exterminating misunderstood creatures from their local ecosystems. In my view, this robot is not so far off in the grand scheme of things from a robot that goes around killing other animals and even people, based on shallow, superficial misunderstandings of another being's potential.
I wish as much engineering effort went into understanding as it does into stuff like this.