5
votes
Farm to table automation
I think automation is coming quick and fast and think that a landmark event will be when food can be farmed, packaged, shipped and sold without requiring any humans to be involved. I see the foundations in place already with Amazon Go and autonomous vehicles and it doesn't seem like too much longer before this kind of automation could be possible in my mind.
Anybody want to weigh in with thoughts/discussion? What effects might it bring? Will it lead to a sort of monopoly as the food could be sold so much cheaper? When might this scale of automation be plausible? Anything really, just looking to spark some discussion :)
I'm not worried about it, if that's the implication of your post. Literally the entire story of human history has been moving people out of agriculture and into other industries. It used to be that the majority of people had to work in agriculture. Today, less than 2% of Americans work in agriculture. We are better for it, as food is cheaper than ever, and we are free to pursue other things. The future you described just takes that 2% figure and turns it into <1%.