John Phipps: AI Aftershocks
It seems only yesterday when critics of American education were denigrating social science degrees like history and urging young students to learn to code. The disquieting consequences of the recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) undermines that advice. Consider Microsoft Copilot — an AI tool that takes prompts in plain English and writes code needed for an app or inclusion in a larger program. The coding efficiency boost is estimated around 50%. The demand for programmers of all levels could rapidly reflect that productivity boost. Machine learning is eating its parents.
Opinions on AI possibilities range from intriguing entertainment to dystopian disruption. The demand for media content drives such speculation far ahead of convincing evidence. Staggering investment bets persuade some to anticipate professional risks and alter their life plans.
Or coworker or competition?
Workers in various fields are watching the uncanny ability of AI to interact, carry out complex tasks and, bluntly put, depopulate categories of employment. Sales, customer relations, medicine, accounting, human resources and education, along with programming will be early tells of AI impact. More importantly the most powerful AI successes might thrive unnoticed to avoid public unease.
Farmers feel little threat from AI. If anything, it promises to make already automated work even easier. Imagine pulling into a field and saying, “Plant this” and sitting back to watch. We’re not far from that now. We cannot, however, picture giving such command from an office or “no-hands” marketing and financial management.
Farmers are likely far down the list of threatened occupations, but they are a tiny fraction. Any such job safety has a price, however. If AI quietly reduces employment demand, where will displaced workers go? What careers will new entrants aim for? Clearly, the “safer” ones.
Family farm job security, usually undervalued, will lure formerly indifferent returnees. Ag’s landed offspring will saturate entry channels in even larger numbers, despite plummeting birth rates.
Multiple aspiring successors are a historical dilemma for parents. It drove immigration from Europe, after all. With the disappearance of 30-years-and-
a-gold-watch jobs, the AI labor displacement eventually will be reflected in land prices. Incumbent farmers will strive to defend and expand those “employment refuge acres.” Recent data suggest farmers are in a strong equity position to drive that land market.
AI could cause earthquakes in some professions. If and when it does, farm families will feel the aftershocks through the earth.
