Thoughts and experience of Jānis Jaško, founder of “WeedBot”, on working with Artificial Intelligence. Jānis Jaško has been the CEO and co-owner of WeedBot for four years. After several years studying the environment, he found his next project: how to help agriculture with modern technology.
Tell us a bit about your work. What does your company do?
WeedBot supplies farmers with high-precision equipment that, with the help of a camera, recognizes plants and destroys weeds with a laser. Robots identify plants with the help of artificial intelligence. The product is not yet fully finished, as it still needs to be improved, but customers, innovative farmers, are all over Europe.
Your primary education is in biology. How did you end up as a company CEO?
Yes, my main education is in biology. Later I studied environmental management. For the last ten years, I have been involved in various environmental protection projects. How to help farmers fight various negative factors - weeds, pests, diseases.
How often do you encounter AI in your daily life and in what forms?
Since part of our product is based on artificial intelligence, we discuss it very often. Both how to train networks and how to implement them for the client. In terms of products, we encounter it every day, but new tools have also entered everyday life, such as ChatGPT for preparing texts and searching for simpler solutions.
What has been your experience with AI so far?
Overall, definitely positive, but my expectations before starting to work with it were much higher. I thought it would be at a much higher stage of development than it is. But after you understand its capabilities, it is very easy to use it professionally, in terms of products. It is important to understand all the limitations and not be afraid of it. Artificial intelligence definitely has a lot to grow and develop. Especially in practical application, complex actions, and operations.
Jānis, what is your opinion on our society in this matter? Are they sufficiently educated in the field of AI?
It's hard to say, but if you look at the people closest to me, I would say that there could definitely be more understanding. Many people who could benefit from using the AI tools available to everyone often choose not to use them or simply don't know about them. Also, many people don't have time to keep up with all of this and learn about it. If it's not purposefully organized by the workplace, people simply don't have time for it.
What are your predictions about job losses due to AI?
I think it's the same with all the technologies that have come before. Just like the looms or fax machines disappeared. Therefore, I think it's just a tool that will enter our daily lives and we won't even notice when it happens. The number of professions that will be created due to artificial intelligence will be much greater than the number of professions that will be lost due to artificial intelligence.
Which jobs do you think will be the first to be replaced by artificial intelligence?
I think you can see it by application - text correction, translation. I believe that it will facilitate several jobs, for example, in medicine, as well as in agriculture, which our product focuses on. Agriculture and farming will not disappear anywhere, so we focus on replacing heavy manual labor with something easier. Our product is designed with this in mind. Since Europe does not use chemical agents to destroy weeds, everyone uses manual labor. Therefore, replacing this heavy manual labor with technology is important and necessary. In our case, customers are very much looking forward to this product.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I encourage people not to be afraid of artificial intelligence. It is a tool that will help us. If someone is afraid that it will take over the world, you just need to use it a little more to see that for artificial intelligence to take over the world, it still has a lot to learn. We are the ones who train him and if we teach him good things, nothing bad will happen.
Find out more about Weedbot at www.weedbot.eu
Follow Jānis career on Linkedin
Written by Anna Stieģele, Editor at Mila
