AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

Agricultural robots and artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly promoted for their environmental virtues. In Australia, the idea that agriculture needs to be less environmentally destructive and attend to ongoing colonial harms, is increasingly expressed in terms of ‘caring for Country’. Although this concept draws on Indigenous ideas of kinship, it is being adopted by white agriculturalists seeking to be more environmentally attentive and sensitive to Indigenous justice issues. In this paper, we ask whether, and if so how, robots and AI can contribute to caring for Country. We examine issues that those who seek to be more sensitive to relationships with the environment and Indigenous justice must consider in the context of decisions about AI and robots. We argue that while not without promise in some respects, robots and AI seem likely to exacerbate the logics of settler-colonial agriculture in ways that call into question their capacity to contribute to an ethic of caring for Country.