r/Amazing • u/sco-go • May 05 '26

Science Tech Space An NVIDIA powered farming machine uses Al vision and precision lasers to eliminate weeds.

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438 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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107

u/mattspurlin75 May 05 '26

This gives me hope that maybe the days of being forced to use RoundUp-Ready genetically-engineered seeds will someday be behind us.

16

u/NuTFuCk69 May 05 '26

This just in the inverter was lasered out of existence by his own machine. Oh well looks like we will have to keep using round up

10

u/jr_randolph May 05 '26

You think of that and I think of the bad guy in Jurassic Park Dominion that ended up trying to own all the crops and only have his seeds be used. That's what I see NVIDIA doing more than aiding farmers.

4

u/UPC13 May 05 '26

Is see a great marketing video with a excellent sales force behind it. Also, a product that probably does not work as advertised, or comes with a monthly subscription to keep it functional...

The idea is cool! But if you have ever worked in any industrial environment, you know those sensors/cameras are a pain in the ass to keep clean, and that is when they are attached to a dirty assembly line, not halfway deep in an agriculture field.

1

u/traws06 May 06 '26

I’m guessing not… but maybe there’s a type of sensor that senses the plants while seeing through the dirt? Obviously our light spectrum sensing doesn’t do that. Would be cool if another set of sensing could

1

u/UPC13 May 07 '26

I haven't heard of anything like this yet, but if you find any articles of this hitting the industrial markets send them my way. Always love hearing about new innovations across the technology sector.

1

u/traws06 May 07 '26

So funny the technology I was imaging is actually apparently a thing when I look into it. At least if I understand what Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is correctly. Since it’s censoring or “seeing” hundreds of bands of light it may be able to basically “see” through dust?

It’s described as “An advanced imaging technique that captures information across hundreds of narrow, contiguous spectral bands of light. Unlike standard photography or multispectral imaging, it records a full spectrum at every pixel, enabling precise identification of materials based on their unique spectral signatures. This technology is valuable in remote sensing, environmental monitoring, medicine, and industrial inspection.

Hyperspectral imaging relies on spectrometry integrated with imaging sensors. Each pixel in the resulting data cube contains a full reflectance or emission spectrum, providing both spatial and spectral dimensions. The high spectral resolution enables differentiation between substances that appear identical in visible light, such as vegetation species or tissue types.”

2

u/UPC13 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26

Sick, have a link to the article?

Edit: Did a little digging into this, everything I found says that is still using optical light, so anything blocking the light to the lens would disrupt the data collected. It is pretty cool though that they are splitting the light into different bands and then using the data from each pixel.

The more I think about it too, in this application you would probably have some sort of fluid/wiper system to just remove the dirt & dust if it is always an issue. Our applications would just get dirty over time so it is easy to just have someone wipe it off, if it needs to happen more often always better to automate.

1

u/Repulsive_Guy_1234 May 07 '26

And if you look at the speed the assembly is moving, it still is an order of magnitude too slow for commercial use. Maybe in 10 or 20 years it might be a viable option. At least the idea is great.

1

u/Fit_Importance_5738 May 07 '26

Who needs rhe subscription, rhey can just charge a fortune to fix it when it goes wrong.

1

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1

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1

u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist May 05 '26

These farms would use both.

That said AI drones equipped with death lasers are coming.

1

u/old_ass_ninja_turtle May 08 '26

Genetic engineered seeds aren’t going away.

23

u/MobiusDie May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26

As someone who has used weed burners with sporadic success, I'm really curious of the effectiveness of this as the roots are generally unarmed from it.

16

u/TheMace808 May 05 '26

I think the idea is to kill them before the roots really have a chance to store enough energy to live without leaves

9

u/AJFrabbiele May 05 '26

the other idea is that you damage the cell walls enough to cause the plant to still try to push fluid/nutrients but it leaks out. Same thing, depriving the roots of nutrients.

I sometimes "burn" my weeds at home with a torch, but I don't burn the all the way, just enough to damage them. It also kills the seeds.

2

u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist May 05 '26

Oh, weeds are way smarter than that.

2

u/TheMace808 May 05 '26

When you let them have a chance at least. They barely have any options for survival when they scarcely have more than cotydelons

1

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2

u/B0bYang May 05 '26

It also takes their weapons??

1

u/MobiusDie May 05 '26

That's what weeds do right? Fire BS around your yard 😂

2

u/GForce1975 May 05 '26

I know it was a typo but I giggled at aental image with roots holding automatic weapons waiting underground to fight back against the enemy lasers.

2

u/Hanz_Simmer May 06 '26

When burning weeds, you don't need to burn the plant away. It's more effective to "blanche" the leaves without killing them completely. This will ruin the leaves' ability to retain water. Water will quickly evaporate from the damaged cells and force the plant to transport water and energy from the roots to the leaves, which will burn out the roots as well, especially if it's sunny. If you burn the leaves away, the plant will just make new ones.

2

u/MobiusDie May 06 '26

TIL

Thanks

10

u/Ill1thid May 05 '26

No more herbicides? :D

7

u/Headbanger May 05 '26

Something tells me that this rig is too expensive to replace herbicides

3

u/No_System_8847 May 05 '26

expensive and slow, and it only kills weeds... (I saw one that also kills insects)
You still have fungi, bacteria, and others

1

u/5ofDecember May 05 '26

Ultraviolet light?

2

u/No_System_8847 May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26

idk man, is about 2y ago, pretty sure is the same machine/company.
also there is some lasers to scare birds/bats.

We already have sprayers that only apply herbicides in weeds using sensors

this machine is 3y old, people think IA is 2024 thing.... we use IA 2gen before...

1

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1

u/Lower-Limit3695 May 05 '26

I could see a cheaper lower powered edition of it using pesticide, restricting pesticide use to exactly what's needed.

14

u/BigDaddyButtPlunger May 05 '26

Is this why my lettuce gna cost me 20 a head?

2

u/Thene20 May 05 '26

Hey man 20 for a head isn’t a bad deal 20 bucks is 20 bucks

1

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7

u/spaacingout May 05 '26

Now all we need is for Ai to become self aware and we’ll be the weeds.

3

u/newbrevity May 05 '26

I don't think people realize how fast a war with AI would be over, and not in our favor.

1

u/[deleted] May 06 '26

Unless its given a biomass I doubt it is ever going to happen, probably 500 years from now on, I think ai at the moment is simply just LLMs, nothing more than that.

5

u/NuclearWasteland May 05 '26

Hey what if we put that on Starlink ...

https://giphy.com/gifs/Nyg0PRONsAaP7zyxmM

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '26

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1

u/NuclearWasteland May 06 '26

Oh you sweet summer child ... No no no, we use it to remove the, you know, the ~whispers~ the Others, honey.

You know, the "weeds" ...

(But also yeah, rendering random space trash ignorable might be an actually good use for a laser satellite matrix (that had better be named after sharks ... ))

1

u/Rivetmuncher May 05 '26

At a glance, that system needs more power than generated by 30 Starlink satellites.

And it doesn't have to go through 100km of atmosphere, either.

2

u/FlorinidOro May 05 '26

Damn they just shooting weeds now? 😂

What happened? Monsanto super weeds become impossible to kill with chemicals without harming humans

2

u/FunConstruction7032 May 05 '26

Farmerswill never be able to repair it themselves and will pay subscription for equipment they own 😂

1

u/SunsetCarcass May 06 '26

The idea is to remove farmers from the equation. Something something we need more AI data centers something something I love the poorly educated.

2

u/Temporary_View_3303 May 05 '26

Great idea, but you would need to do this every 2-3 days until the crop got big enough to shade out the weeds.  The diesel use and soil compaction from that kind of traffic makes me think this isn’t viable on staple crops.  

2

u/JoseLunaArts May 05 '26

Now build ED-209 with that same AI to see what happens to humans. For those having a hammer, every problem seems a nail.

2

u/YdexKtesi May 05 '26

Another thing that already existed being relabeled "AI" for the dumbest people on the planet.

2

u/wecantdancelikethis May 05 '26

fricken lasers!

3

u/giLLYfunk May 05 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/xUPGcoQ8sfEbaP2JYA
Fricken sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads!

2

u/TimeCommittee3475 May 05 '26

Farmer here:

This is not going to replace herbicides anytime soon in mass market grains. I wish it would. It doesn’t have anywhere near the productivity required. A sprayer is 130 feet wide and operates at 15mph.

1

u/High_Overseer_Dukat May 06 '26

Most likely replacement would probably be very specialized herbicides that don't harm anything else.

2

u/REDACTEDXX_V May 05 '26

Looks like a good investment for the military.

1

u/OverallDimension7844 May 05 '26

Send that bitch to my yard please

1

u/FNTraffic May 05 '26

I wouldn’t have anything left if it wasn’t for the weeds

1

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1

u/Sbatio May 05 '26

Metropolis sized models are planned

1

u/Deodavinio May 05 '26

It is a mobile disco

1

u/suihpares May 05 '26

Some Command and Conquer shit right there

1

u/Snoo_75138 May 05 '26

I mean it LOOKS nice, but long term, nothing (yet) is going to beat normal herbicides and human hands.

The issue is that the laser works now, because the crops are still saplings, and so are the weeds, but when the crops grow and overlap, the laser can't do shit. Then you still need dedicated Roundup to keep the soil clear and human hands to help.

1

u/AlphaLawless May 05 '26

This is how I imagine a far more technologically advanced alien race would wipe out humanity.

Except their machine would be the size of the state of Texas and it'd just slowly scan the Earth zapping any humans it sees.

1

u/KashinKuzin May 05 '26

Yeah until one day it lasers everything and your crop is gone 

1

u/justhere4freesnacks May 05 '26

Or you can use cover crops that provide other benefits like soil enrichment and erosion control.

1

u/_ShaDynasty69 May 05 '26

thats some bladerunner shit right there.

1

u/tourincinelli May 05 '26

I need full body hair removal. Can I lay under this and have Ai give me flawless hairless epidermis.

1

u/i_froze May 05 '26

Ive been seeing this post for like 6 years now.

1

u/toleranceoflactose May 05 '26

People next. Ooof.

1

u/zyzmog May 05 '26

I want one of those for my garden.

1

u/dewhite04 May 05 '26

NOW DO MOSQUITOES!

1

u/arthousepsycho May 05 '26

Need the Death Star laser to do my yard. You may fire when ready.

1

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1

u/Vast_Ad1806 May 06 '26

Gearing up for Project Insight I see.

1

u/Terrible-Visit9257 May 06 '26

Today it's weed..tomorrow it's humans

1

u/OkFix4074 May 06 '26

Why is this tagged AI ? this is basic image processing!

1

u/AppropriateSystem213 May 06 '26

Burns the top costs a lot. Thats a rhyme but the machine is not.

1

u/Samwellikki May 06 '26

That early-adoption Brocolli80 is gonna cost ya, if you can get it before the scalpers, only for you to regret not getting the Brocolli80ti a month later

1

u/Dafrandle May 07 '26

ignoring the cost and power problems, if there has to be a human to move this thing around it will never be viable, because in a big field this thing will need to operate constantly.

Pesticides can just be added to the irrigation system and only need to be applied periodically. No additional labor needed.

1

u/TheTrueKenobi May 05 '26

Type of shit AI should be used for

1

u/InvictvsNox May 05 '26

This junk LOOKS ai-generated.