Will’s World: Wanted – spare axe for farm printer

There are some lines from the classic science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert that I often ponder.

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

See also: Farmers Weekly Podcast Ep 322: Daniel Zeichner on life at Defra

With all the recent dire warnings about AI models developing at a frightening pace and potentially destroying the human race within the next decade, it’s perhaps no wonder that my thoughts have turned in this direction.

But the truth is, I don’t need futuristic Terminator-style technology to scare me, as the stuff we’ve had available for years now already stresses me out enough.

Call log

Take this morning. I had a list of phone calls to make that consisted of the British Cattle Movement Service, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and Vodafone. And yes, you’re right to wince.

I spent approximately 20 minutes navigating various automated voice options, which included me having to repeat myself five times to explain what my query was about to one of them.

I don’t know if the large language AI models can fully understand “frustrated farmer swearing loudly” yet, but I suspect that they’re well on their way to doing so now.

Ironically, it was a flurry of indecipherable letters from the Apha that resulted in me having to call them and BCMS.

We had two cattle numbers that according to them were on our holding, but which weren’t found in our recent TB test.

One of them died a few days before the test, and the other’s disappeared into thin air. Eventually, when I managed to speak to a human being, I quickly clarified the situation.

Another letter, which arrived the same day as the previously mentioned one, stated that we needed to do another whole herd test within the next seven days.

Apparently, this was automatically triggered by “the system” as a result of the two unexplained animals, and thankfully we don’t need to do another test after all. Marvellous, isn’t it.

Instruction manual

To add to my already considerable stress levels, we’ve bought a new seed drill (well we’ve got to do something to spend all this money we’re making growing cereals, lads), and the fitter was coming that day to talk me through how it works.

If you’re laid back, tech-confident, or youthful, you’ll be wondering why I’d be worked up about this.

Well, it’s because I can’t take in verbal instructions. I’ve been trying for over 40 years, and it just doesn’t happen.

Someone can start explaining something to me, or fire off a load of commands, and it’s like the opening bars of “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC start loudly playing in my head.

I get around it by making copious notes and flowcharts in a little black book, with pages and pages dedicated to various farm machinery, websites and the like.

It just about works for me, but I do feel embarrassed about it so I’m always on edge when I have to tell others what I’m doing.

A stressful day and a half with the fitter later, and we still haven’t got the drill fully talking to the tractor properly, though seed is coming out of it and into the ground now, so perhaps I should be just thankful for small mercies. 

Can anything else go wrong, I thought that night. Of course it could, my old arch-nemesis the office printer suddenly decided it wouldn’t print anything, no matter what I tried.

Anyone got a large axe I can borrow to fix it with? I can just about work one of those.