AI affect on arborculture

[Tom Dunlap]

There are some places where AI will likely eliminate and replace its present structure.

What parts of Arborculture do you see either eliminated or morphed out of its present existence

Example…

K boom grapple saws can make many jobs a one person work order rather than a large crew using ropes and rigging

Now, mate that with a drone that flies the canopy and makes a 3D cutting schedule that would be fed to the K Boom. All of this technology is on the shelf. It just needs to be integrated

What will the profession look like in ten years

 

[evo]

I’m seeing remote controlled tracked flail mowers and similar machines.
What will probably be coming down the line is AI assisted equipment. Sensors in a chipper that make it idle down when the op walks away, some safety optics to shut down before someone gets eaten, AI assisted control modules to optimize performance.
Probably the same thing for loaders, and stump grinders.
AI office work, and it’s already being used in consulting and reports

 

[Brando CalPankian]

Don't forget the short term changes. Within 5 years most CRM platforms will have AI helpers, whether phone and email assistants, bookkeeping helpers, etc.

It's already being used with Lidar and drones for veg management work planning. Forestry is implementing ai more for sorting through vast amounts of imagery. Also for invasive species Id and management.

I want a fully autonomous crane setup. I can confidently say I cut trees in my sleep then

 

[evo]

Don't forget the short term changes. Within 5 years most CRM platforms will have AI helpers, whether phone and email assistants, bookkeeping helpers, etc.

It's already being used with Lidar and drones for veg management work planning. Forestry is implementing ai more for sorting through vast amounts of imagery. Also for invasive species Id and management.

I want a fully autonomous crane setup. I can confidently say I cut trees in my sleep then

Jobber is using an AI assistant. If its anything like their AI chat bot it needs work, but they are setting it up for phone calls etc..
Doubt I would ever have a live AI interface for my client communication but I can see automating certain things to be helpful.
Washington DNR is already using AI for fire look out cameras.

 

[flushcut]

There are some places where AI will likely eliminate and replace its present structure.

What parts of Arborculture do you see either eliminated or morphed out of its present existence

Example…

K boom grapple saws can make many jobs a one person work order rather than a large crew using ropes and rigging

Now, mate that with a drone that flies the canopy and makes a 3D cutting schedule that would be fed to the K Boom. All of this technology is on the shelf. It just needs to be integrated

What will the profession look like in ten years

I had this very conversation yesterday with a former sub. And basically said the same thing about k-booms and grapple saws but with automated grapple fed chippers.

 

[flushcut]

I’ll also add the price point of an ai operated k-boom will be prohibitive for a start up. Just as its sticker shock now with some equipment.

 

[southsoundtree]

The biomass stream could possibly be harnessed more effectively.

 

[Reach]

Jobber is using an AI assistant. If its anything like their AI chat bot it needs work, but they are setting it up for phone calls etc..
Doubt I would ever have a live AI interface for my client communication but I can see automating certain things to be helpful.
Washington DNR is already using AI for fire look out cameras.

Jobber staff have told me not to use their AI receptionist yet, it still needs help… Their AI marketing email creator though is good, I mostly like what it has been producing for us. We’ve had some rather good results out of it in the last couple months.

 

[Bart_]

I think automated grapple boom saw removals would be solved at a first step as straight machine or algorithm programming as its basicly a geometric modelling and vector analysis problem ie just math after simple vision geometric modelling. AI works off of patterning extracted from a vast data set to train on. I don't think there's even one operating complete machine even amongst the research crowd. I think fitting the geometry model to the sensors (likely optical) is just scanner tech usually just using best fit "stick" or finer gradated/subdivided model "bits"? Don't know the right word, think all those cubes in Minecraft.

Plant disease recognition - off of database of photos. Species I.D.

First strike against AI - the AI country singer. Or is that an indictment of country music? Wait for AI heavy metal etc. Going to be unsettling.


Some years ago a speech recognition phone system actually said to me "I know you want to speak to a person but how can I help you?" after I had said it about 7 times in a row. Kind of like 10 levels of menu choice followed by "that mailbox is not operational. goodbye"

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Scaling up Roomba technology to doing rake up duties seems natural

 

[Brando CalPankian]

Scaling up Roomba technology to doing rake up duties seems natural

I'd buy that. Cleanup is the worst part

 

[Bart_]

Make sure it's the new version that doesn't try to roomba up the dog poop and paint the yard with it

 

[Daniel]

I could see a fully automated stump grinder for simple stumps... rootballs and hilly areas could be tricky..

 

[ghostice]

Scaling up Roomba technology to doing rake up duties seems natural

In winter, I've often thought about some business with a fleet of robot snow sweepers (for sticks and leaves etc I guess too) that come off the trailer on command and sweep those light snows off drives and sidewalks. There are YouTube videos about single units already. I suppose the tech now exists (like the Husqvarna lawn mowers making their way between property edge senders/ markers). A matter of time before some AI will get rid of the need for the senders in the lawn. Easy to program something like this even now if you always start from fixed point I guess.

 

[climbhightree]

There are some places where AI will likely eliminate and replace its present structure.

What parts of Arborculture do you see either eliminated or morphed out of its present existence

Example…

K boom grapple saws can make many jobs a one person work order rather than a large crew using ropes and rigging

Now, mate that with a drone that flies the canopy and makes a 3D cutting schedule that would be fed to the K Boom. All of this technology is on the shelf. It just needs to be integrated

What will the profession look like in ten years

As a full time grapplesaw crane company (strictly subbing out to tree companies), I don't forsee them being used for Ai pruning. Removals I could potentially see with lidar etc. Though the cost of such a setup would be pretty crazy. You are talking about $600k to a million just for the truck, crane, saws. Then add all the technology, cameras, Ai, etc.

As to pruning, kbooms do not even come close to making proper cuts. I pretty much refuse to make pruning cuts, unless they go up and clean them up. It is also an issue of getting the boom into the canopy, and not sawing limbs you don't want to cut.

I more see the Ai in the PHC aspect of tree work. Which in some ways could be a good thing...no more over treatments, miss treatments, spraying for something not there (just for the money and/or tech is clueless).

An Ai generated pruning guide could be a pretty good thing too (same reasons as PHC). Just not seeing the ability to move around the tree, get proper angled cuts, minimum damage to other limbs (from climbing and cutting), etc.

 

[southsoundtree]

I wonder if a team of small robots in a coordinated work plan could prune trees, even setting rigging.

 

[Brando CalPankian]

I wonder if a team of small robots in a coordinated work plan could prune trees, even setting rigging.

This was my direction with it. A bunch of spider bots that can climb up and work together to rig out tight quarters debris.

 

[Muggs]

Climbing trees as a profession is not going to fizzle out any time soon. AI-powered robotic climbing monkeys with chainsaw arms might sound cool to some, but there's just not enough money in tree work to justify the development. You don't spend 20 dollars to solve a 6 dollar problem.

 

[evo]

Look at the welding trades. Sure many robotic processes have developed over the years but it’s far from dead.
We are a smaller niche industry comparatively and sure in time there will be quite a bit of innovation with technology but I doubt there will be a need to worry any time soon

 

[Daniel]

An Ai generated pruning guide could be a pretty good thing too (same reasons as PHC). Just not seeing the ability to move around the tree, get proper angled cuts, minimum damage to other limbs (from climbing and cutting), etc.

AI pruning guide would have to be drawn from existing written materials which are scarce and lacking.. I saw an article on some online magazine about rigging and was going to write the editor to say that AI could have written the article better than that. So I asked AI to write an article on tree pruning only to realize that the article I was criticizing had been written by AI.