Editor’s View: I see more threats than opportunity from AI
© Adobe Stock “Bulldozing the moat” is a favourite corporate phrase for when an insurgent company or technology takes on an established company’s competitive advantage.
While most boardroom jargon makes my teeth clench, I rather like this visual metaphor when attempting to imagine how artificial intelligence (AI) could disrupt the economy as we know it, including farming.
This week, we detail how Staffordshire farmer Clive Bailye’s use of an AI tool (built by a company he has co-founded) helped him compile a Sustainable Farming Incentive application and file it with minimal intervention, allowing him to successfully apply despite being on the road.
See also: Farmer Focus: Continuing the experiment with AI
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If a lot of farmers used an AI tool in the same way that Mr Bailye did last month, the funding could have evaporated in a matter of minutes, not hours.
That is something else for Defra officials to reflect on as they consider how to structure next year’s scheme – and farmers who will be determined to find any competitive advantage possible.
Many farmers are already using AI in various ways, but this is a striking example of the trust that will be required in the technology for adoption to increase – a significant six-figure sum was at stake here.
And trust is what it will take for the bulldozers to rumble in earnest towards the glistening moats of the many land agents, business experts and others who currently make a living in part from advising farmers and filling out their forms.
Farmers use their services for two overlapping reasons.
First, to contract out work that they haven’t got the time or inclination to do themselves – in the same way they may use a contractor for spraying, fencing or baling.
Second, to buy expertise or qualifications that they feel they don’t fully possess even if they had the appetite to do the work.
AI holds out the promise of doing both of those things more quickly and cheaply than a person could manage – but where will it become commonplace, and when? And will we be any better off?
In the financial markets, investor anxiety keeps ratcheting up about whether the enormous costs of building the AI future – in computer chips, power and data centres – will be repaid.
Just this year, AI companies have already borrowed more than $450bn (£336bn) to fund artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to data compiled by financial media firm Bloomberg.
If AI doesn’t live up to its hype, the risk of that debt being defaulted upon is shared by anyone who has any exposure to the stock market, such as through an ISA or pension.
If the valuations of these tech companies, which make up a third of the value of the US’s largest stock index, fall sharply, there is a real possibility of AI’s productivity gains being totally eclipsed by a new financial crash.
In short, the bulldozers won’t just fill in the moat and consign old-fashioned businesses to the history books, they’ll set the rest of the economy on fire while doing it.
We are already well past the point of no return. AI is not going to evaporate even if that happens. But it is troubling how little of the road ahead we can see.