"2. Google dispatched their solutions architect to work with them."
That's not what happened at all. He built the system entirely himself before getting in contact with us.
I think that while very complex machine learning tasks do require specific knowledge, creating a neural network that can do real work is within the abilities a single individual.
Good to know. While what I said was meant to be hypothetical, I am happy to stand corrected.
>creating a neural network that can do real work is within the abilities a single individual.
This really depends on said "individual." My biggest issue was the tacit conflation between two themes, one valid and another reeking of "feel good" marketing:
1. That a reasonably technical person can use neutral network to do useful things, no small part thanks to something like TensorFlow (valid)
2. That such individuals are prevalent in agriculture (???)
I am all for hero-making: it's at the heart of marketing and customer advocacy. However, as someone who has been doing technical marketing for awhile, I just find this story exceptional in both senses of the word (as others commented, perhaps I turn out to be wrong!)
Advocacy is partly about inspiring others and I think this does that while presenting an accurate representation of what the farmer was able to accomplish.