CASE #6: John Deere X-Series: Smart Farming with GPS, AI, and IoT: autonomous equipment for use in the harshest conditions globally.
CASE #7: MOFLIN: Your AI pet simulates a living animal’s emotions & development, for the human need for interaction, entertainment.
Featured on the graphic, clockwise from top: John Deere, awardee; Samsung Ballie; MIT nanoemulsion gel; MBenz truck; Samsung surgical; Samsung; Moflin pet, awardee.
Bots to fulfill/gratify a range of human intent/needs.
INSIGHTS+OUTLOOK:
John Deere:
Strikingly unusual award by the CES to a large (GINORMOUS) autonomous equipment? Is it just a technical benchmark? Two million farms use 52% of total US land area. Farming peaked at 70% of all US employment, now down to 1.3%. Industry and technology steadily draw workers away from agriculture.
Moflin:
yet another electronic pet? Consider the pandemic isolation likely creates markets for emotional- and entertainment-satisfaction; comfort in AI pets.
CHALLENGE:
How to extend/enhance/augment human functions, or absence and presence.
DIVERGENCES:
As technologists, do we consider our larger impact and take into account contextual issues ab initio?
What of rural areas that digitization still leaves behind?