Robotics and AI have already begun to shape humanity, and even one of man's oldest industries, agriculture, is now being affected. What problems do farmers typically face, what robotic and AI solutions are currently under development, and how will they change agriculture in the future? Of all the inventions and discoveries by man, agriculture was the most important of all. The invention of agriculture, whereby crops are planned, and animals are domesticated, meant that people could settle into strong communities, with well-defined borders that kept predators at bay. The creation of settlements also saw humans move away from their nomadic days, and this allowed for proper planning of food and supplies. The ability to store food also provided people with free time, and free time lead to thinking.

The two biggest tech trends to really take off in 2016 have been Mixed Reality (VR and AR) and Artificial intelligence (AI). As a Tech development company, we've obviously covered a lot of these: But in our review of our posts in 2016, we realized that most of these focus on tech businesses, or Software management systems. There's no discussion of other industries, no look at how AI and Mixed Reality (MR) can change businesses that we don't normally think of as being revolutionized by tech. With all of our years of experience in this business, we've realized that the world as we know it is inevitably headed towards a vast global network of Digitally connected devices – i.e. the Internet of Things (IoT). While most people are well aware of this by now, sometimes we find ourselves struck at just how quickly our world is changing, in ways that we've never even thought of.

The robot can gather a piece of fruit and sort by size automatically. Last month as our Mixing Bowl colleagues Michael Rose and An Wang were interviewing Sonny Ranaswamy of the USDA's NIFA to better understand current US food and agriculture labor issues, we were representing The Mixing Bowl in discussions on potential solutions to food production labor issues through automation and robotics. At this year's RoboUniverse event in San Diego there was a full-day track on December 14th dedicated to the application of robotics to agriculture. The industry track, pulled together in great part by Nathan Dorn, CEO of Food Origins and an Advisor to The Mixing Bowl, featured a knowledgeable group of automation/robotics experts and food producers who drew on their experience to define the opportunities and sharpen focus on the challenges. Nathan authored a detailed summary of the day in a post on Agfunder.