This is neat but definitely seems like something for tiny little dairy farms still. Like they quote 30-40 seconds in the article to hook a cow up to a milker with a robot, but a human can do it in 3-4 seconds and with a rotary milker they can milk near 5,000 cows 3x a day like that . That said it does usually take 3 or 4 people to run a rotary milker, 1 for udder cleaning, 1-2 for attaching milkers, and 1 for post-milk sanitizing. But of course the people working there are generally the most desperate of society because they get shit and pissed on all day and stink even after bathing, so only costs around $10 an hour.
Not saying im not hoping this all improves or that it is good as-is, but the reality is these robots are competing with bottom of the barrel wages from tweakers working at a breakneck pace with live and moving and variable animals so it isn't easy and still has a ways to go before most peoples milk production can be automated.
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