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As if he personally ran this without people who knew a few things? Go look at the success rate of university research. This sounds like someone who hasn’t bee

As if he personally ran this without people who knew a few things? Go look at the success rate of university research. This sounds like someone who hasn’t been part of research.

arrosenberg 2y ago
Per the article it sounds like the entire operation took place on his company-town Hawaiian island of Lanai, so...kinda, yeah, that is what I think. I'm sure he had a small staff, but my instinct is that most of the expenses were capex and self-dealing.
antasvara 2y ago
The article specifically says that he had tech CEO's running the project. The mistakes they made also seem pretty fundamental to farming; things like: 1. they didn't consider that a greenhouse designed for the desert wouldn't work in Hawaii 2. solar panels need to be installed differently depending on their location and never see the theoretical power generation in practice 3. immature/mature plants were growm right next to each other in a way that spread pests 4. they bought marijuana greenhouses without considering that it is grown so differently from other standard crops. This is pretty basic stuff that should have been caught by someone with knowledge of agriculture. This seems to indicate that while they had a really smart team, they made the mistake of assuming that general AI/robotics would map 1:1 to the problems of agriculture. The success rate of university research should have been the ultimate warning sign that you shouldn't dump half a billion into "solving agriculture." Progress in established fields like agriculture is expensive, time consuming, and (usually) incremental. The thought that you could do all of that at once and outcompete an approach that has been refined for thousands of years is wild. Kudos to them for dreaming big, but I just don't see why they thought they had an edge here outside of "AI can solve any problem" hubris.

As if he personally ran this without people who knew a few things? Go look at the success rate of university research. This sounds like someone who hasn’t been part of research.

arrosenberg 2y ago

Per the article it sounds like the entire operation took place on his company-town Hawaiian island of Lanai, so...kinda, yeah, that is what I think. I'm sure he had a small staff, but my instinct is that most of the expenses were capex and self-dealing.

antasvara 2y ago

The article specifically says that he had tech CEO's running the project. The mistakes they made also seem pretty fundamental to farming; things like: 1. they didn't consider that a greenhouse designed for the desert wouldn't work in Hawaii 2. solar panels need to be installed differently depending on their location and never see the theoretical power generation in practice 3. immature/mature plants were growm right next to each other in a way that spread pests 4. they bought marijuana greenhouses without considering that it is grown so differently from other standard crops. This is pretty basic stuff that should have been caught by someone with knowledge of agriculture. This seems to indicate that while they had a really smart team, they made the mistake of assuming that general AI/robotics would map 1:1 to the problems of agriculture. The success rate of university research should have been the ultimate warning sign that you shouldn't dump half a billion into "solving agriculture." Progress in established fields like agriculture is expensive, time consuming, and (usually) incremental. The thought that you could do all of that at once and outcompete an approach that has been refined for thousands of years is wild. Kudos to them for dreaming big, but I just don't see why they thought they had an edge here outside of "AI can solve any problem" hubris.