NASHVILLE, TENN. (RFD-TV) — Use of artificial intelligence (AI) is widespread across today’s farms and is quickly finding a home in some large food companies. Several major players in food production have already made AI a key part of their operations, including McCormick, Cargill, and General Mills. Those companies use AI to blend ingredients, do product development, and even forecast demand.
Industry leaders say the technology will not replace workers entirely, but it will have a significant impact on how operations move forward.
Analysts believe using AI to complement human judgment will be key. As more farmers adopt AI, there’s also a focus on ensuring that information is neutral and free of bias. According to tech developer John Kempf, doing so could require a significant step back.
“There are all types of bias that can occur,” Kempf said. “There can be just the bias of having 60 peer-reviewed papers saying one thing, and then three or four other papers saying something that is in direct conflict or in direct contrast to those. You also have a bias of recency versus historically. So Fieldlark doesn’t make recommendations for anhydrous ammonia, for example, or potassium chloride, because it’s looking at the broad array of evidence and the additional externalities and saying there are much smarter, much better ways. We haven’t given it any instructions, for example, to take a biological agriculture approach or to give it a regional agriculture approach because it needs to be bigger than that.”
Kempf told aginfo.net that AI training needs to be macro-focused and have a global perspective.
