AI--Learn a Skill!

Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 21 August 2023…

Hey Y’all!

Good evening and happy Monday from Free Missouri! It is HOT again, temps over 100 that feels like 115. This is going to continue all week…ooooff. We lost 5 beef chickens to the heat yesterday. They have shade, water, and are well ventilated. For whatever reason, they huddled together instead of spreading out, and overheated. We’ve got a fan going on the beef chicks in the brooder in the barn. They are panting but seem to be handling it well enough. The rest of the animals are handling it ok and spending the majority of the day in the shade. The highlight of the day, and probably one of the most impactful decision on our daily lives…we’re moving to milking once a day! Since December, we’ve milked twice a day. We’ve been talking about it but decided to pull the trigger this morning. In the extreme heat, their production is reduced anyway and we decided to take the opportunity to make the switch. We cut their morning feed in half today and they’ve spent the majority of the day in the shade. The lack of food reduces their production. That coupled with the reduction due to the heat may be enough that we can make the transition without dealing with issues like mastitis. We made the decision this morning and have felt free all day. If this works, it allows us to do things like go fishing, or anything else, that lasts into the evening. We’ve migrated all of our normal rounds into the morning, with the exception of collecting chicken eggs around noon and feeding the hogs in the evening. Makaylah has picked up the responsibility for those two events, leaving Shelley and I free after morning rounds! We first exercised our freedom today by picking the garden. We spent an hour with Makaylah watching the first two lectures of a Hillsdale College course, “American Citizenship and Its Decline.” It’s a free course that is really good so far. It’s a part of her homeschooling curriculum, because we decided it was important for her to learn about what it means to be a citizen. We then sliced tomatoes and peppers and put them on the smoker to add some flavor before we will blend and can them tomorrow. We froze lots of Thai chili peppers and are cooking a pot full of greens for dinner. We spent the rest of the time preparing show notes so we can record episode 4 of the Dust’er Mud podcast tomorrow.

I’ve enjoyed the comments regarding AI! Shelley and I chatted about AI this morning (like most mornings) and she commented that maybe all of this AI hype is similar to the Y2K hype we experienced in 1999. We were stationed in England and prepared the best we could, we at least had some food and water on hand in case the financial system collapsed and we couldn’t buy anything. As the New Year approached, I began wondering if it was going to collapse, which time zone would cause it—would it collapse for us in England before our family in the US? Would it ripple across the globe as the New Year arrived in each time zone? As we all know, it turned out to be a big nothing-burger. Tons of hard work went into ensuring that, but the end result was there was a lot of hype and for the most part, nothing happened. Shelley’s vote is that she wants the same thing to happen with AI, lots of AI hype and then it just turns out to be maybe a helpful assistant or something to perform party tricks. While I appreciate her wishful thinking, I do not think that is the reality of the situation. I stick to my original assertion that I shared with you months ago. The world has changed. Not it’s going to change, it happened already. The ramifications are beginning but are nowhere near complete. I believe most white-collar jobs will slowly (or quickly) be first augmented and then replaced by AI. One thing on which most experts agree is that there is going to be mass unemployment as jobs are replaced by AI, until new jobs are created. The significance is forecast to be greater than any other revolution in history. More than tractors and machines replacing horses, more than automobiles replacing buggies, more than robots replacing line workers in factories. My recommendation is that if your job can be made better/easier by incorporating AI, PLEASE learn how to use it. The first thing that is going to happen is that people using AI will replace people that can’t or won’t use it. The next step is that AI will replace those people, but the timing for that isn’t concrete. There are cultures in the world that do not rely on “jobs” for the personal feelings of security and significance. If your job is your world, I recommend some deep soul searching to find a different source of security and significance. I highly recommend learning a physical skill to do with your hands. We’re doing everything we can to learn how to provide food for ourselves and our community in a humane and responsible manner, and as much as possible with as little external inputs as possible. It’s already happening for computer coders. AI is already making their jobs easier/faster/better. The experts are torn regarding what will happen to coders between human/AI combo coders being much more productive or just AI replacing them. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Are you doing anything to prepare or learn to use AI?

Local Farm Report for 20 August 2023

Harvest:

17 Chicken eggs

9 Duck eggs

6 1/2 Gallons of milk

Cheers!

Psycho & Shelley