Forget robot lawnmowers, robot gardeners are coming

Everyone hates doing chores and luckily they seem to be going the way of the dodo in modern life. Whether it's a robot vacuum or a robot lawn mower, we're using technology to automate more and more tasks, but would you give a robot power tools?

And so we go to San Francisco where this future Terminator level threat is being developed. Electric Sheep Robotics has created Verdie, a rather cute, green-fingered robot. 

Verdie, who I think resembles Wall-E, runs on the company's own ES1 model described by Electric Sheep as "the ChatGPT of the physical world" that outputs a birdseye view semantic map of the world for easy travel over unpredictable terrain. Verdie is more than a Roomba in appearance too, it balances on two wheels and even has eyes that turn red when alerted.

As for what Verdie can do to help you around the garden, that depends on what power tools you want to equip it with. Verdie can strim the edges of your lawn, use a leaf blower and even equip a saw. He's not a bad dancer too.

I'm no gardener, but watching the video above has me very excited for the future. Verdie seems like a multi-purpose platform that could be easily customised for other  uses. Swap his leaf blower for a drink tray and he could be a perfect robot waiter for example. 

AI might be popping up everywhere from your phone to your wristwatch these days but it is robotics that could perhaps benefit from the AI boom the most, or destroy us all. 

Of course, it's not really a solution for residential gardens but for large sites and parks, Verdie could be an ideal solution. While you can't buy one yet, hopefully, we'll see Verdie pruning roses near you sooner rather than later.