The computer cowboy

In our area we’ve been invaded by Silicone Valley tycoons with too much money who are buying up ranches at astronomical prices even though they don’t know the first thing about the cattle business. These geeks look at real cattlemen like we are neanderthals because of the way we dress and talk and our failure to incorporate AI into our operations. I tried it once years ago before these pimply-faced computer cowboys had made their first million and it was a wreck of epic proportions. Some ranches are just not compatible with artificial insemination.

Oh, wait a minute, the computer cowboys are not talking about our reluctance to use artificial insemination, they are referring of course to artificial intelligence. I gotta tell you, if all these robo-calls I get are an example of the use of artificial intelligence then I don’t want to live in a world that is artificially intelligent. Another example often given about the wonders of AI is something called Chat GPT which allows its users to plagiarize from writers like me without giving any credit or any royalties. Since AI is going to put a lot of people out of work I just don’t understand all the excitement about it.

Here’s just one example of how AI and algorithms are costing these computer cowboys lots of money.

I enjoy shipping cattle and I did it occasionally for a couple order buyers and one very astute auction yard owner. Usually these folks called me when they were overbooked for shipping cattle that had sold on the video. Invariably they only sent me to the one or two-load deals that were close to my home. My instructions were very simple: sort off the bad eyes the gimps and any cattle that were outliers that just didn’t fit. My instructions also depended a lot on the market. If the cattle were bought too high on the video I was instructed to be a lot more picky and if the cattle were bought real cheap I was told to put every animal that could limp up the chute on the truck, even if it was already overloaded.

The last time I shipped cattle it was to a new computer cowboy who refused to send his cattle to the auction market where his cattle would be subjected to true price discovery. So the owner of the auction yard just bought the cattle real cheap and resold them at his weekly auction sale.

When I arrived at the ranch to ship the calves I noticed they had been deprived of feed and water overnight as per the deal and they looked like they must have been worked real hard the day before by wifey, the drones and dogs used to round them up. (The reason people are so excited about AI is that it will reduce the human involvement in many tasks, in this case cowboys.) The computer cowboy excitedly told me that in the future he was also going to be incorporating facial recognition on his cows, electronic ear tags, virtual fencing with each cow having to wear a collar around its neck, and cameras everywhere so he could check on his cattle at all times using his smart phone.

With only one load to ship I thought I’d be in and out of the shipping in an hour but I was still at it FIVE HOURS later! That’s because the computer cowboy insisted on individually weighing and recording other data on every single calf so he could, “Build data sets to use in his algorithms.” Whatever that means.

I swear, each calf was weighed on a scale that looked more like a clipping chute than it did a scale but these weren’t show calves. It was a hot day and as the owner was busy building his data sets the calves waiting to be weighed were shriveling up like raisins.

After the auction owner sold the cattle at his weekly sale he sent me a nice check as a thank you because the calves had the biggest shrink he’d ever heard of. He also asked, “I don’t know what you did when you shipped those calves but do you want a full-time job?”

From this and other experiences I’ve come to the conclusion that the more artificial intelligence is employed the less intelligent people become.