See all Motoring NewsWell, here we are at Carzone having to again sound a cautionary bugle about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI). This time, our robo-fears have been triggered by a crackpot concept cooked up by some international design students.
The deceptively benign brief, set by CNH Industrial, New Holland Agriculture and the Domus Academy in Milan, was to ‘develop a vision of farming in the future which is both accessible and sustainable’.
Hazarding a guess that none of the students involved have ever seen any of the Terminator franchise, their plan was to automate the farm machinery with AI – and, perversely, they seem to have rendered their ideas for the total destruction of the human race by cybernetic overlords in some cheery cartoon manner depicting ‘Farmer Joe’. Presumably in the days before the annihilation of his species by intelligent, malevolent New Holland agricultural units.
Also obliquely referencing Aliens, the students’ idea was to equip poor old Joe with a command centre in the form of an autonomous ‘Queen’ (“Get away from her, you…”; well, we think you get the idea) tractor, which would control all the other vehicles on the farm. These ‘tractobots’ also have morpho-wheels, which can transform from the standard round shape to triangular tracks using the same outer rim and spokes, allowing them to march on unhindered over all terrains. Which they will do, crushing skeletal human remains as they go, once the Queen’s AI realises that humans are the cause of all earthly problems and wiping them out with her ‘tractobots’ is the only solution.
This project to bring down all of civilisation under the flimsy pretext of more efficiently harvesting oilseed rape was presented at The Future Of Farming expo in Milan last month. Among the attendees was one Miles Bennett Dyson, who was seen taking furious notes on the subject before leaving in a hurry, muttering something about ‘lots to do with an arm and a chip’ as he went.