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Farmers In India Are Using AI To Increase Crop Yields (microsoft.com)
Reader joshtops shares an incredible story about how thousands of farmers in India are making use of AI and other technologies provided by Microsoft to ensure that they plow the field and sow the seeds at the right time. Prior to this, they were relying on their traditional instincts, which many of them say, had failed them in the recent years. From the story: The fields had been freshly plowed. The furrows ran straight and deep. Yet, thousands of farmers across Indian states of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Karnataka waited to get a text message before they sowed the seeds. The SMS, which was delivered in Telugu and Kannada, their native languages, told them when to sow their groundnut crops. In a few dozen villages in Telengana, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, farmers are receiving automated voice calls that tell them whether their cotton crops are at risk of a pest attack, based on weather conditions and crop stage. Meanwhile in Karnataka, the state government can get price forecasts for essential commodities such as tur (split red gram) three months in advance for planning for the Minimum Support Price (MSP). Welcome to digital agriculture, where technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Machine Learning, Satellite Imagery and advanced analytics are empowering small-holder farmers to increase their income through higher crop yield and greater price control. "Sowing date as such is very critical to ensure that farmers harvest a good crop. And if it fails, it results in loss as a lot of costs are incurred for seeds, as well as the fertilizer applications," says Dr. Suhas P. Wani, Director, Asia Region, of the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Microsoft in collaboration with ICRISAT, developed an AI Sowing App powered by Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite including Machine Learning and Power BI. The app sends sowing advisories to participating farmers on the optimal date to sow. The best part -- the farmers don't need to install any sensors in their fields or incur any capital expenditure. All they need is a feature phone capable of receiving text messages.
Who is Al? It's all about the Pentiums, baby!
This is nothing a standard algorithm with known input conditions couldn't accomplish. True AI would be able to anticipate or predict things for which it had no prior experience; for instance an eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano means plant the crops 10 days later. I highly doubt that this is true AI but more likely just a little fancied-up standard stuff with the AI label tacked on to try to generate funding for ICRISAT.
The definition of 'AI' has been updated. It now stands for 'Algorithm Implementation'.
I am wondering what happens when the "AI" suggestion turns out worse than the regular gut feeling. Gut feeling most likely spread the sowing on slightly wider time so not everyone would have bad harvest on the same year. Now we can mostly win but at times terribly fail (in case everyone followed the suggestions which the summary does not imply).
APPS was the old new word.
hmmmm millenia of farming experience, or algorithms. hmmm....
I don't think "Microsoft" and "Empowering" mix well (unless you mean empowering rich assholes, that is).
It is Farm Report + Twitter.
Indian farmers are at the mercy of a few politically connected families who control the commodity markets. Farmers can grow crops as efficiently as possible, but they still get robbed when the time comes to sell it.
How many pounds of this do you have to apply per acre? It smells just like the stuff we've always used.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just a bean counter shirt to determine the yield per acre for each crop.
1. No mention of what this "AI" is supposed to be.
2. Hint: It's not AI, since we don't havd any of that yet. I would be surprised if it even involved a NN at all.
3. The farmers being forced to pay for seeds, instead of using seeda from last year's plants, since the crops they plant are deliberately made sterile.
4. The crops reproducing anyway, and replacing all the natural versions of the species, so that you can't just use a naturally available species, as you'd get sued to death for patent/copyright/cocaineDistortionBubble violation.
5. Farmers going bankrupt or starving to death if they don't play along.
I know, point 4 and 5 are not in TFA, but they are direct conclusions from point 3 plus nature finding a way, and hard-backed by https://youtu.be/6nNFmzAOtJI * and its sources.
_____
(* "arte" may be unknown in the US, but is a TV channel in France/Germany that is very respected for the quality of their documentaries.
"Annual agriculture is all about living through our concepts... our idea we've imposed on reality. And, when reality doesn't behave according to our idea, what do we do? We input... we can never input enough to make our false concept correct." @RestorationAgD http://bit.ly/1GnbtAA
considering how many farmers got screwed by the whole Monsanto cotton seed thing... If I were them, I wouldn't be betting my livelihood on some algorithm that seems rather untested.
"Annual agriculture is all about living through our concepts... our idea we've imposed on reality. And, when reality doesn't behave according to our idea, what do we do? We input... we can never input enough to make our false concept correct." @RestorationAgD http://bit.ly/1GnbtAA
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
...but I'm too tired to write one. Help me, someone ;-)
So basically we are calling any algorithm "AI" now. Cool.
AI code:
10 print "Urgently, do the needful."
There's a concept of "weak" AI and "strong" AI. Then there's the modern concept of "AI", which is fake AI. But it sells.
I'm actually working on a blockchain-based strong AI system. I'm already seeing great results but I can't currently afford to scale. With a decent chunk of change I could have an adaptable, resilient, and distributed advanced AI system based on blockchain technology that would be suited to, fundamentally, any computational task.
If anyone wants to invest, just let me know.
AI is bull shit.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Reader joshtops shares an incredible story about how thousands of farmers in India are making use of AI and other technologies provided by Microsoft to ensure that they plow the field and sow the seeds at the right time. Prior to this, they were relying on their traditional instincts, which many of them say, had failed them in the recent years. From the story:
In the US, people are moving from using science and technology to relying on their traditional instincts, which are failing them in recent years.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Then it does. Ignorance is bliss, if you're ignorant about that too.
In reality, the concept of "owning" the idea of a lifeform, so you can create an artificial scarcity monopoly (both otherwise crimes by the way), and gouge your victims on price, is ridiculously fucked-up and psychopathically evil on even more levels.
As if the prices wouldn't climb to insane levels as soon as they can.
E.g. when the natural species are extinct.
Which, btw, is precisely what Monsanto, Bayer, et al. are planning, according to leaks a few years ago.
And if that isn't scary as fuck to you, then you're as numb as canned bread.
My grandpa was a farmer btw. Like so many here, he stopped letting the corporations gouge him to death.
So regarding your "every farmer". Yeah, you're the expert, city basement dweller. --.--
Delhi suffocates whilst farmers burn stubble.
When she was good she improved yields, but when she got it wrong ( with so many farmers following her advice ) she caused a famine
They could have sprinkled In a few sensors and hit the IOT button as well.
So, in the past some farmers made mistakes and their crops failed. But others followed a different drummer and their crops did well. Through human history it has always been this way.
Now however, when Cortana makes a mistake, the entire region suffers crop failure resulting in disaster.
Dealing with so-called AI can be improved by a simple additional step. Instead of having it make statements or take actions based upon its internal logic, it should first outline in human readable form the data and steps it used to arrive at those choices. A well chosen human may be able to prevent terrible mistakes before they happen.
...omphaloskepsis often...
for Windows update to finish before getting their text messages.
They also try to burn the odd elephant or two here and there by throwing burning tarballs at them....
What kind of people would burn animals, regardless of the people's reasons for doing so??