Here I was thinking of the film Runaway (1984). It had farming robots which eliminated pests with grippers and grinders -- pick up a caterpillar, drop it into

Here I was thinking of the film Runaway (1984). It had farming robots which eliminated pests with grippers and grinders -- pick up a caterpillar, drop it into the grinder. I like that a bit better than the laser solution. Not all of the *cides could be replaced with these, but certainly you could identify undesired plants and insects that way, and destroy them. Insects may be fast enough to require lasers, but who knows? Non-desired plants could simply get snipped and fall to the ground. Fungi ... could at least be identified and marked on a map for later spraying. I think all of this is do-able (and a lot better place to start for self-driving AI than the lofty goal of cars, given the restricted domain, lower speed, reduced danger ...), but the real question is: can these robots price out lower than the *cides they might replace?