While not strictly dealing with cannabis, this is big news for the agricultural industry as a whole. Large groups of people are employed for these tasks, and a single robot is more efficient, faster, and cheaper. Do any of you expect to see a similar robot for cannabis? One that harvests, cures, and trims the cannabis all on its own?
Also, what are your thoughts on reforming labor laws for seasonal workers?
I suspect that there will initially be the same resistance to robot work that there is for automated trimmers at the moment, where the quality of hand trimmed is seen to be superior to machine trimming. But once the technology is mature I bet that the results from robotic harvest will not be distinguishable from by hand. Hand harvested will probably become a selling point for craft cannabis but the larger operations that deal with volume will all be fully automated.
