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The world simply wasn\u2019t ready for AI powered tractors.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps it was Monarch Tractor, the much-hyped<\/a> company that promised to revolutionize agriculture when it launched these electric-powered autonomous farm machines in 2023, that wasn\u2019t prepared to deploy its own creation.<\/p>\n Once valued at over half a billion dollars and buoyed by over $240 million in initial funding, Monarch is now in ruins. After burning through that mountain of cash, it laid off its entire workforce late last year, warning that it may \u201cshut down\u201d entirely. In March, it was reported that it vacated its Livermore, California headquarters, almost certainly spelling the end.<\/p>\n What went wrong? There are myriad reasons at play, but chief among them is that it sounds like the AI tractors kind of sucked compared to the venture\u2019s vast hype \u2014 a warning to AI and robotics startups everywhere that eventually reality can come crashing down like a bad harvest.<\/p>\n New reporting from SFGATE<\/a> about the company\u2019s undoing points to a brutal review from California winemaker Patrick O\u2019Connor, who says he\u2019s been testing the tractor for three years on his vineyard.<\/p>\n \u201cIt totally failed,\u201d he said in a recent Instagram video<\/a> that garnered over 25,000 likes.\u00a0<\/p>\n More worryingly, \u201cit was actually quite dangerous,\u201d he added. In his view, a quarter of a billion dollars had been \u201cwasted\u201d on developing the \u201cfailed autonomous AI robot tractor.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview with SFGATE, O\u2019Connor drove the point home by saying he couldn\u2019t find a single serious use for the AI tractor, and found its self-driving mode to be hazardous. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t let anyone else around it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t just take O\u2019Connor\u2019s word for it. Last September, several tractor dealerships sued Monarch<\/a> for allegedly selling defective tractors and making misleading claims about their autonomy. Monarch denied the claims, but in a detail that further underscores the tumult at the company, the attorneys on at least one of the suits have stopped representing the tractor maker, SFGATE noted, citing reporting from Pleasanton Weekly<\/a>.<\/p>\n Monarch made a heavy push to have its tractors catch on at dairy farms and vineyards. O\u2019Connor was an early adopter, hoping that they could perform physically gruelling work like spraying pesticides on his steep plantation, adding that the machines were designed to work in the narrow lanes of vineyards.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was theoretically promising advancement in mechanical weed control over chemical weed control,\u201d O\u2019Connor told SFGATE. \u201cBut the hydraulics were finicky, the automated row follow didn\u2019t pan out. It was hitting my vines. And it was never to a point where you could be driverless.\u201d<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s mostly a glorified mule for O\u2019Connor, who uses it to haul around tools in its storage container and hooks power tools up to its beefy battery.<\/p>\n Using a custom attachment, he also uses it to split wood.<\/p>\n \u201c$200 million log splitter,\u201d O\u2019Connor dryly enthused in the Instagram video.<\/p>\n More on self-driving AI: Tesla Workers Are Seizing Control of Robotaxis When They Get Stuck<\/a><\/p>\n \t