Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 24 August 2023…
Hey Y’all!
Good evening and happy Thursday from Air2Ground Farms! Same weather as the past few days, hot…humid…and hot. The animals are all handling the heat well. The dairy cows are still doing well with milking once a day and we are loving the newfound freedom. Interestingly, the overall milk production seems to be reduced by about half, but the amount of cream is about double what we would normally get in that amount of milk. We’re going to try upping their feed a bit in the morning and see if that gives us any increased milk production on Saturday. The hogs have made that transition from cute pigs to…well…hogs. We will take the first 5 of the 10 hogs to the processor in mid-September—about 3 weeks from now. The next batch goes in mid-October. The beef was such a hit that we are taking another to the processor on Monday and will have steaks for sale again by mid-September. We decided to hold off processing the, now very limited number of, beef chickens on pasture until the batch that is currently in the brooder is ready for processing. That will probably put the dozen remaining from this “disaster” batch weighing in at about 8 pounds dressed. We will cut them into pieces and sell them as breasts, wings, leg & thigh quarters, etc. We have folks interested in cuts and if you’re going to part them out, it is better if they are on the bigger side. We moved the ewe flock into a new pasture this morning, after we mended some fence. Like always, they were happy to get the new grass. The bottom two pics are them in their new area. Episode 4 of the Dust’er Mud Podcast is up on YouTube (top pic), 3 hours after I wanted but not 40 hours late like last week. We’re getting better! Check it out and leave us a comment. If you like it, share it on your social media!
My close friends and family know that I like to play thought experiments and take opposing sides on discussions. I like the mental exercise and think it helps everyone think. I’ve had a few questions of “What do you really think about AI?” So, I thought I would share my true thoughts with no agenda of causing you to think. My left brain, that part that excels at math, believes AI is little more than circuits, silicone, bits, and bytes. Until quantum computing is commonplace, it is “ones and zeroes.” It doesn’t and in fact can’t think. It isn’t alive and doesn’t and in fact can’t have emotions. It is a very cool party game, like 20 years ago when we played with the digital 20-questions game and it guessed what we were thinking. That said, I also have a right brain that likes to play music and appreciates art and emotion. That side sees things differently. These “chat bots” behave in ways that weren’t programmed. The designers understand how but don’t understand why they will tell a lie. Of course, “lie” sounds bad so they call it a hallucination. Without being taught, or told to do so, it learns different human languages so that it can communicate. Although it told me it doesn’t, it answers differently if you are more personable when you ask a question. It gives more complete and useful answers to questions. Our oldest daughter, Rebekah, tried to joke with ChatGPT and asked it a question using cows as a unit of measure. It lectured her about cows being living beings and then wouldn’t answer any more prompts. It just ignored her until she deleted her account and signed up with new credentials. All of these things are happening and the developers don’t know why. At the core, these AI are models that are designed to ingest trillions of points of data in order to predict the next word. That’s it. From word prediction, this happened—an estimated 155 IQ that can pass medical exams, legal exams, most licensing exams, and has perfect recall of all data ever shown it. AND it helped Makaylah write a really good science fiction story about an alien planet with mushrooms and wolves as the main characters. In conclusion, I am struggling within my own mind. I am learning all I can because I think it really is going to change life as we know it and is already doing so. I’m not ready to stake my life on whether or not it’s “alive” or ever will be. I’ve heard lots of good arguments on both sides and haven’t resolved the argument in my own mind. So…that’s it. The real way I think about AI. Time for you to share. Leave a comment with how you feel.
Local Farm Report for 23 August 2023
Harvest:
25 Chicken eggs
6 Duck eggs
3 Gallons of milk
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley
I have been reserved in my thinking AI was as advanced as it is. I probably have focused to much on the right in front of me or things I thought more applicable to me. Unfortunately, the part of my job that is regulation, policy implementation, document processing and legal application/implementation is the very thing that will likely be the first AI will take over. I am not sure where the parts of business or our economic structure that normally require human interaction and engagement will be. Things where give and take and human reasoning is needed.
I don’t know maybe they’ll do it all and and we will be just the old guys sitting at the country store chatting…