Maybe. Or maybe they'll be just like regular tractors with a side module for your AI of choosing.
In which case you still won't be locked out of your machine, in the sense that you can choose the company with the best farming AI.
The only way for a quick automation scenario is to make crops a lot more predictable. In our days, this means linearly sown and harvested, artifact free crops.
If we choose a more hands-on approach to farming (and food production in general for that matter), then automation ceases to be as interesting.
> Maybe. Or maybe they'll be just like regular tractors with a side module for your AI of choosing.
We can't even get interop between instant messaging platforms, and video calling platforms. Why would we anticipate that companies manufacturing $200,000+ pieces of equipment are going to work together when they have the option of lock-in?
If you decide to spend thousands on a tractor with an AI sophisticated enough to do everything a regular human tractor driver does, but nothing other than that; and if once you buy that piece of equipment you've committed yourself with a service contract for rest of the equipment's life; then what you are doing is basically either handing over your business or something equivalent to hiring a human being for a 20+ year long contract that only does one job.
I would never do that, unless I was actually renting the land. Some people do rent their land, and perhaps committing to such a contract could make sense to them.
The alternative is to simply buy a tractor and then hire someone that does many other things, like driving other tractors, cleaning them and do some repairs and maintenance. (If I could do that to my own AI-powered tractor, maybe then I would buy one). This is about who controls your business.
I believe there's future in modularity, but I also believe some kinds of equipment won't fall into the automation ratchet or the "evolve to AI or die" category.
People are already ditching John Deere for not letting them repair the tractors they own.
If you are developing an AI sophisticated enough to pilot a tractor, would it only be able to drive one model? If John Deere ever achieved this goal, the AI should be adaptable to other brands as well.
Car manufacturers are doing this already with Android. They do not develop the OS, they simple accommodate their cars for it.
I have a working GPS system that belonged to my father's John Deere tractor. I cannot use it anymore, even in other John Deere tractors. This is wasteful and makes no sense. People working in farms, close to nature and subject to profit margins they do not completely control feel very uncomfortable with this.
