The problem with artificial intelligence (AI) influencing management decisions, is there is no accountability. Meaning, a computer can never be held accountable; therefore, a computer must never make a management decision.
I say this, because 2025 is shaping up to be the year of AI. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms has announced a $65 billion investment into AI infrastructure, including a data center large enough to cover most of Manhattan, with “hundreds of billions of dollars” to be invested over the long term.
In cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, you can hail a fully autonomous taxi service called Waymo. A self-driving, fully electric car will pick you up and deliver you to where you need to go, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At Waymo’s home page, “We’re on a mission to be the world’s most trusted driver. Making it safer, more accessible, and more sustainable to get around — without the need for anyone in the driver’s seat.”
In rural areas, even farming has turned autonomous. Pesticide and fertilizer application can now be accomplished via drone, and the agricultural world is abuzz with the advancement of autonomous pollinators including robot bees and microdrones. Literally, insect-sized drones are being designed and implemented to help pollinate crops in greenhouse and vertically-integrated farming systems, and beyond.
In the midst of an increasingly autonomous world, it is disappointing to see how eager we are to separate ourselves from the natural world. An increasingly connected world has not made us more connected as people. In reality, the opposite has occurred — we live in a world where we can no longer agree on basic, fundamental facts. We are poisoning our minds, and our bodies. Even the concept of truth has become obscured and nebulous, not to mention the concept of accountability.
Future generations will laugh about how during this time period, we had to invent intelligence because it did not seem to exist elsewhere.
Meta’s AI platform is far from perfect. I recently searched for videos about training and riding geldings in wintertime, and was inundated with videos of bikini-clad “influencers”. Of the 15 videos that popped up, not a single one included a horse, but there was lots of skin and plenty of curves, with riding implied.
In San Francisco just two weeks ago, a series of potholes opened up in a busy intersection. Autonomous Waymo cars paid no attention to the sudden anomaly and drove straight through the potholes without slowing down. In January of 2025, a Waymo car collided with an autonomous food delivery bot, begging the question: “Who or what is liable?”
What a time to be alive! Robotic food delivery, taxies, autonomous farming, sexual affirmation and more, at the swipe of a screen. Why, there’s no need to ever go outside ever again. Good thing, too — the outside world is dying, so the time is right to create a whole new world without the distraction of what’s actually happening outdoors.
I have observed, with my own eyes, a striking decline in the wildlife that used to accompany rural living. Throughout my childhood on any given summer evening you could collect jars of fireflies. Last summer, fireflies were few and far between. Likewise, any spring rain would bring out nightcrawlers. The roads and driveways would be covered with nightcrawlers, and my dad would dig for them around the base of the corn silage silos whenever we went fishing. Lately, there are hardly any nightcrawlers.
When leading horseback trail rides around the farm, I have observed the horses grabbing mouthfuls of corn leaves. That is, right up until early August when fungicide is typically applied to the crops. All of a sudden, the horses stopped eating corn leaves. All of a sudden, the horseback riding trails were littered with dead raccoons and dead birds. I asked our nutritionist about this and she remarked, “Oh, don’t let the horses eat corn after fungicide is applied. It will give them neurological disorders.” But hey, I’m sure it’s safe for human consumption.
I have noticed that our farm cats will drink cow milk; even cow milk that has gone sour, but they will not touch oat milk, soy milk, almond milk, or any highly processed varieties of “milk” that is advertised to be “healthier” and “more environmentally sustainable” than the real thing — expired or not.
As for honeybees and natural pollinators — no need to worry about the quantifiable decimation of either. With robotic microdrones on the way, we don’t even need pollinators anymore, and who needs honey as a natural sweetener when we have high fructose corn syrup?
If only horses and cats had access to AI. They would learn that plant-based (think “processed”) milk is a healthy alternative to cow milk, and high fructose corn syrup, well, AI just told me corn syrup is not healthy, so AI must be wrong, too. Just like horses and cats.
For what it’s worth, I will never be able to take AI seriously for the simple fact that it stands for something totally different in the farming world. Now back to researching how to train and ride geldings in wintertime.
— Dan Wegmueller is the owner of Wegmueller Farms and his column appears regularly in the Times. His website is https://www.farmforthought.org.
