How artificial intelligence is helping Japanese cucumber farmers

Two cucumber farmers in Japan have received an unusual boost to their business after their son adapted Google's powerful artificial intelligence software to carry out the arduous task of sorting vegetables. Makoto Koike returned to his parent's cucumber farm in 2015 after working as a computer systems designer in the automobile industry. While helping out on the farm, Koike realized that one of the most time-consuming processes could be overcome through automation. Taking inspiration from Google's powerful artificial intelligence computer program AlphaGo, Koike set about designing a sorting system using a $35 Raspberry Pi 3 computer and Google's open source deep-learning platform TensorFlow. "Each cucumber has different color, shape, quality and freshness," Koike said.