You have probably read about robots replacing human labor as a new era of automation takes root in one industry after another. But a new report suggests humans are not the only ones who might lose their jobs.
In New Zealand, farmers are using drones(无人机) to herd and monitor cows and sheep, taking up a position that highly intelligent dogs have held for more than a century. The robots have not replaced the dogs entirely, Radio New Zealand reports, but they have appropriated(盗用) one of the animal's most powerful tools: barking. The DJI Mavic Enterprise, a $3,500 drone favored by farmers, has a feature that lets the machine record sounds and play them over a loudspeaker, giving the machine the ability to act as the dogs.
Corey Lambeth, a shepherd on a farm, told RNZ the machines are surprisingly effective. ''That's the one thing I've noticed when you're moving cows that the old cows stand up to the dogs, but with the drones, they've never done that,'' he said, noting the drones move cows faster, with less stress, than the dogs do.
The drones come in handy for more than just herding(放牧) cows and sheep. The robots allow farmers to monitor their land from afar, monitoring water and feed levels and checking on the animals' health without disturbing them. Jason Rentoul told RNZ that a two-hour herding job that used to require two people and two teams of dogs could be accomplished in 45 minutes using a single drone. ''Being a hilly farm where a lot of stuff is done on foot, the drones really saved a lot of man hours, '' he said.
For now, farmers say, there is still a need for herding dogs, primarily because they have a longer life span than drones, can work in bad weather and do not require an electrical socket every few hours to recharge.
