One of the first stories I did as a freelancer, back in the early 80s, was about radio tracking collars being used on cows so that farmers could manage the herd better.<p>So this is something in the robotics field that has been long-coming. If you'd like to get an idea of what the future holds for people, take a look at cows, a creature that has a lot of financial value. The idea is that the cow is tagged to be uniquely identified, when the cow approaches a service center, for say salt or food, the system reads the ID and delivers an appropriate form of nourishment. When the cow is uncomfortable due to lack of milking, the system milks the cow. Next up, I'm sure, will be automated detection of sick cows along with some basic veterinary interdiction. Finally it would be very easy to add a little bit of behavioral control to the system, either a mild shock, a noise, or some other stimulus to gently train the animal over time. I could even imagine a farm without fences, managed completely by robots and conditioned cows. The cows are happy, the people are happy.<p>Pretty cool. Also a bit unnerving.<p>I don't think there needs to be a robot revolt. I think over a few centuries they'll just slowly manage us into extinction, where we will most likely belong.
In college I worked on creating a robotic system for harvesting fruit (specifically, oranges and apples):
<a href="http://digitalcommons.olin.edu/scope_2009/2/" rel="nofollow">http://digitalcommons.olin.edu/scope_2009/2/</a><p>Its amazing how difficult these problems are. This type of work relies on things that humans are optimized to do - forage and produce food. We are arguably the best robot for some of these tasks.
That's old news, such technology is available for several years. I have seen such systems in the early 1990s in Europe.<p>The downside is that you need a lot of antibiotics for the cows. In the end, people will eat the meat and drink the milk of such animals plus a dose of antibiotics. More and more get an immunity.<p>So worse is better. (aka low tech agriculture with less animals in one farm building)
I was actually most impressed by this little rotating robot. I actually had to this by hand some years ago, shoveling the feed so that the cows can get at it, and this rotating solution looks ingenious!