scholarly journals Identifying key ethical debates for autonomous robots in agri-food: a research agenda

AI and Ethics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Ryan ◽  
Simone van der Burg ◽  
Marc-Jeroen Bogaardt

AbstractAgribusinesses are investing in different forms of AI robots, as there is a lot of hope that these machines will help meet the challenges within the agricultural industry, which is to efficiently produce more food for a growing world population. AI robots are expected to enhance production, while compensating for lack of manpower, reducing production costs, taking over unattractive (risky, heavy, and dirty) jobs and reducing the burden of food production on the environment. In spite of these promises, however, AI robots for agri-food also give rise to ethical questions and concerns, which have been little researched and discussed until now. To fill this gap, we developed a research agenda for future research in this area. To do this, we opened our analysis to focus on ethics AI robots generally to specifically identify which of these issues are most relevant to agro-robots. The question we want to find an answer to is: what are the most relevant ethical questions raised about AI robots for robots developed for the agri-food sector? And which questions are not mentioned in the literature, which are particularly relevant for agro-robots? Our paper will provide an overview over the key issues and areas which deserve further elaboration to come to a more mature ethics of AI agro-robots.

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Eder

Scholars of the geography of innovation have produced an impressive body of literature over the last decades. However, until recently this research focused on successful core regions, implicitly assuming that there is no innovation in peripheral areas. This view is being increasingly questioned, which is reflected by a rising number of papers, special issues, and edited volumes on innovation outside of agglomerations. Hence, this rapidly emerging field calls for a critical survey. In order to identify a future research agenda, this article conducts a systematic literature review of the work on innovation in the periphery (1960–2016). As such, it explores the recurring themes and key issues of the field and discusses the various periphery concepts applied, ranging from a geographic to a functional perspective on various scales. In doing so, it outlines options for policy makers and suggests avenues for future research: first, the periphery concept needs more refinement. Second, future studies should include systematic comparisons of regions. Third, an evolutionary perspective might provide new insights. Fourth, future work could explore the benefits peripheries offer for certain kinds of innovation. Fifth, urban–rural linkages might be of higher relevance than assumed. Sixth, research should go beyond the well-known examples. Finally, the analysis could be extended by applying a broader understanding of innovation.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (15) ◽  
pp. 4231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emerson Navarro ◽  
Nuno Costa ◽  
António Pereira

The world population growth is increasing the demand for food production. Furthermore, the reduction of the workforce in rural areas and the increase in production costs are challenges for food production nowadays. Smart farming is a farm management concept that may use Internet of Things (IoT) to overcome the current challenges of food production. This work uses the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews (PRISMA) methodology to systematically review the existing literature on smart farming with IoT. The review aims to identify the main devices, platforms, network protocols, processing data technologies and the applicability of smart farming with IoT to agriculture. The review shows an evolution in the way data is processed in recent years. Traditional approaches mostly used data in a reactive manner. In more recent approaches, however, new technological developments allowed the use of data to prevent crop problems and to improve the accuracy of crop diagnosis.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (19) ◽  
pp. 5644
Author(s):  
Adrian-Razvan Petre ◽  
Razvan Craciunescu ◽  
Octavian Fratu

The world population is growing in an accelerated way urging the need for a more efficient and sustainable agricultural industry. Initially developed for smart cities which face the same challenges caused by an increasing population, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have evolved rapidly over the last few years and are now moving successfully to agriculture. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been reported to be used in the agri-food sector and could answer the call for a more optimized agricultural management. This paper investigates a PCB-made interdigited capacitive (IDC) soil humidity sensor as a low-price alternative to the existing ones on the market. An in-depth comparative study is performed on 30 design variations, part of them also manufactured for further investigations. By measurements and simulations, the influence of the aspect ratio and dielectric thickness on the sensitivity and capacitance of the sensor are studied. In the end, a Humidity and Temperature Measurement Wireless Equipment (HTMWE) for IoT agriculture applications is implemented with this type of sensor.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Allemang

As the world population continues to increase, world food production is not keeping up. This means that to continue to feed the world, we will need to optimize the production and utilization of food around the globe. Optimization of a process on a global scale requires massive data. Agriculture is no exception, but also brings its own unique issues, based on how wide spread agricultural data are, and the wide variety of data that is relevant to optimization of food production and supply. This suggests that we need a global data ecosystem for agriculture and nutrition. Such an ecosystem already exists to some extent, made up of data sets, metadata sets and even search engines that help to locate and utilize data sets. A key concept behind this is sustainability—how do we sustain our data sets, so that we can sustain our production and distribution of food? In order to make this vision a reality, we need to navigate the challenges for sustainable data management on a global scale. Starting from the current state of practice, how do we move forward to a practice in which we make use of global data to have an impact on world hunger? In particular, how do we find, collect and manage the data? How can this be effectively deployed to improve practice in the field? And how can we make sure that these practices are leading to the global goals of improving production, distribution and sustainability of the global food supply? These questions cannot be answered yet, but they are the focus of ongoing and future research to be published in this journal and elsewhere.


2020 ◽  
pp. 154-176
Author(s):  
Raymond A. R. MacDonald ◽  
Graeme B. Wilson

This chapters presents conclusions and overarching summaries of key issues, outlining implications for future research. The accessibility of an arts practice that offers creative engagement at any level of virtuosity can have a transformative effect on music education and the ways we feel about making music in our everyday lives. The location of creative agency within a group, rather than within an individual, calls for a new psychology and musicology of improvisation. These issues and other aspects of the way ahead are discussed, with suggestions for new directions in studying, making, or researching music and other improvisatory arts in years to come. In the moments of improvisation, we have opportunities: to explore our identity; to connect with other people; to make conceptual breakthroughs and gain new insights; to develop our confidence or self-esteem; to be understood; to be misunderstood; and still to have fun within an artistic and expressive environment.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Aparna Nayak

Global food security is one of the most unrelenting issues for humanity, and agricultural production is not sufficient in accomplishing this. However, earlier analyses of agricultural food production barely ever bring out the contrasts associated with economic development and different climatic zones. The world population is increasing day by day and climate change will be causing more extreme weather, higher temperatures and changed precipitation. The crop contributes about 20 % of the total dietary calories and proteins globally. There is 1% annual growth in food demand in the developing regions. The developing regions (including China and Central Asia) account for roughly 53 % of the total harvested area and 50 % of the production. Although, unmatched productivity growth from the Green Revolution since the 1960s dramatically transformed world food production, benefitting both producers and consumers through low production costs and low food prices. One of the key challenges today is to replace today’s food system with new ones for better sustainability. While the Green Revolution freed essential ecosystems from conversion to agriculture, it also created its own ecological problems. Moreover productivity increase is now slow or stagnant. Attaining the productivity gains needed to ensure food security will therefore require more than a repeat performance of the Green Revolution of the past. Future demand will need to be achieved through sustainable intensification that combines better crop resistance plants, adaptation to warmer climates, and less use of water, fuel, fertilizer, and labor. Meeting these challenges will require concerted efforts in research and innovation to develop and set up feasible solutions. Necessary investment will be required to realize sustainable productivity growth through better technologies and policy and institutional innovations that facilitate farmer adoption and adaptation. The persistent lessons from the Green Revolution and the recent efforts for sustainable escalation of food systems in South Asia and other developing nations will definitely providing useful insights for the future.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 292-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Wenzel ◽  
Marina Lind ◽  
Zarah Rowland ◽  
Daniela Zahn ◽  
Thomas Kubiak

Abstract. Evidence on the existence of the ego depletion phenomena as well as the size of the effects and potential moderators and mediators are ambiguous. Building on a crossover design that enables superior statistical power within a single study, we investigated the robustness of the ego depletion effect between and within subjects and moderating and mediating influences of the ego depletion manipulation checks. Our results, based on a sample of 187 participants, demonstrated that (a) the between- and within-subject ego depletion effects only had negligible effect sizes and that there was (b) large interindividual variability that (c) could not be explained by differences in ego depletion manipulation checks. We discuss the implications of these results and outline a future research agenda.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghna Dhalaria ◽  
Ekta Gandotra

Purpose: This paper provides the basics of Android malware, its evolution and tools and techniques for malware analysis. Its main aim is to present a review of the literature on Android malware detection using machine learning and deep learning and identify the research gaps. It provides the insights obtained through literature and future research directions which could help researchers to come up with robust and accurate techniques for classification of Android malware. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper provides a review of the basics of Android malware, its evolution timeline and detection techniques. It includes the tools and techniques for analyzing the Android malware statically and dynamically for extracting features and finally classifying these using machine learning and deep learning algorithms. Findings: The number of Android users is expanding very fast due to the popularity of Android devices. As a result, there are more risks to Android users due to the exponential growth of Android malware. On-going research aims to overcome the constraints of earlier approaches for malware detection. As the evolving malware are complex and sophisticated, earlier approaches like signature based and machine learning based are not able to identify these timely and accurately. The findings from the review shows various limitations of earlier techniques i.e. requires more detection time, high false positive and false negative rate, low accuracy in detecting sophisticated malware and less flexible. Originality/value: This paper provides a systematic and comprehensive review on the tools and techniques being employed for analysis, classification and identification of Android malicious applications. It includes the timeline of Android malware evolution, tools and techniques for analyzing these statically and dynamically for the purpose of extracting features and finally using these features for their detection and classification using machine learning and deep learning algorithms. On the basis of the detailed literature review, various research gaps are listed. The paper also provides future research directions and insights which could help researchers to come up with innovative and robust techniques for detecting and classifying the Android malware.


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