Comment – AI and navigating the storm

An interesting week for news.

I don’t mean the current round of dreadful headlines, but that an academic gave his  last 10 years research problem regarding superbugs and antibiotic resistance, to one of Googles AI tools and it cracked the problem and reached the same conclusions in two days. See here for the full story. This is important as the knowledge base and structured thinking power of AI, and its relative availability has the potential to wipe out a lot of ‘thinking’ jobs.

Next time you want to send a nice letter to customer who may still owe you money, perhaps as ChatGPT to draft it, whilst asking it the explain your rights to payment. I can see why debt collection agencies and solicitors are getting a bit windy about AI.

Mind you, AI is going to struggle, certainly in the short term, with some of the drystone walling and drain fixing issues on the farm. Although this short video from Robotti  shows how autonomy can work in the hills.

I note that Deere & Co  have posted a 50% drop year on year in Q1 income with a whopping 68% drop in Production & Precision Agriculture, however the European market is only down by 5% or so in the same sector. I suspect that Deere are not alone, although their full year income guidance remains strong and they note ‘inventory management strategies… continued investment to enhance operational efficiencies and stable financial positioning’ . The full story is here.

Well it’s chucking it down here, so I’m hiding inside for the rest of the day.

Have a good week.

Andy