In his March 21, 2023, New York Times column, Thomas L. Friedman opined on what he called, “A Promethean moment — one of those moments in history when certain new tools, ways of thinking or energy sources are introduced that are such a departure and advance on what existed before that you can’t just change one thing, you have to change everything. That is, how you create, how you compete, how you collaborate, how you work, how you learn, how you govern and, yes, how you cheat, commit crimes and fight wars.” He was referring to Artificial Intelligence chatbot ChatGPT (AI).

Friedman goes on to say, “The last time we invented a technology this powerful we created nuclear energy — it could be used to light up your whole country or obliterate the whole planet. But the thing about nuclear energy is that it was developed by governments, which collectively created a system of controls to curb its proliferation to bad actors — not perfectly but not bad. AI, by contrast, is being pioneered by private companies for profit.”

But just how do we meatheads use or misuse AI in our businesses?

First of all, ChatGPT or AI is machines thinking for us, synthesizing ideas and words often to form confident conclusions sometimes without supporting data, but recommending or initiating actions anyway. For us meatheads, particularly those in the cattle end of the business, AI has a completely different meaning, if you know what I’m saying. Both forms of AI are nonnatural and while one has a predictable outcome, the other is not always controllable as measured by its future effects. But, let’s not go too far conflating or confusing either’s meaning.

To put a cap on it, the physical act of AI as we know it in the cattle/beef business is probably none too satisfactory for the participants, but it is very efficient and effective in a nonnatural sense. AI of computer generation fame is easier to initiate, but with an outcome much more difficult and maybe impossible for humans to understand or control. And that is the frightening part for us all.

So, again I ask, what does AI mean for us meatheads?

Well, it means we will be forced to abdicate our ability to think both traditionally and thoughtfully compared to some computer-spawned AI. Should we fear AI? You bet we should! Or, should we embrace it? Yes, that, too. AI is the apocalypse manifested for which few of us have been waiting nor wanting, but it is here and it’s metastasizing.

We know how to control AI for animals, but we don’t as yet have a clue how to fully control nor use ChatGPT AI and its future iterations. And, that’s the second problem. Whether we ask it or not, AI will tell us the “who,” “what,” “when,” “where” and “how” but not necessarily “why” for our meat businesses.

ChatGPT is a private enterprise program that will bypass our inefficiencies to determine the “best” alternatives, but for whom? For example, the 26-month interval from a bull romancing a cow to a steak being generated AI may deem too inefficient to be perpetuated when compared with, dare I say it, the six weeks of cell culturing or cultivating needed to produce a similar edible “meat” protein for profit’s sake. Oh my, is that what AI means?

Humans may program a computer to generate AI, but AI takes over from there. Computer-generated AI will search the universe for all the facts available, assimilate them then objectively develop and promote an outcome, but without human induced subjectivity nor bias. Think about that for a moment: computers talking to other computers without “interference” from those pesky humans and their nonsensical common sense. And that’s just one example. What about beef industry concentration that AI might deem as the most efficient disarming any government-sponsored funding attempt for small local processors’ survival?

Truly, AI is the opening of Pandora’s box for us all.

ChatGPT is on the cusp of changing everything. By comparison, the invention of nuclear energy that begat Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl was a barely controllable government program. When private industry generates AI for profits, Katy bar the door.

ChatGPT: Watch Out, Here Comes AI Changing Everything!

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