Advanced AI Is Scary—but It Could Help Save the Planet

Any one who’s ever grown up in a rural part of the country can tell you: The sun rarely ever catches farmers sleeping. After all, a farmer’s work is never done—and that might never change.

However, if you are a farmer, your life might look just a little different someday soon: you wake up around 5:00 a.m. or maybe even earlier. After getting dressed, you grab a cup of coffee and breakfast to fuel up for the day ahead. As you do, you run through an unending checklist of priorities and to-dos for the day: feed and water the animals, clean their sheds and pens, and tend the crops. But first, you need to head out to the barn.

There, after making your way past the tractors and harvesting equipment, you arrive at a platform with a large drone on it underneath an opening in the ceiling. You swap out yesterday’s batteries with some fresh ones from a charging terminal. Then, finally, you pull up an app on your phone and speak into it. “Check the soil status of the soybeans before watering the cornfield.” Soon, you hear the familiar whirring of the propellers. You step back and watch as the drone takes off out of the skylight and into the brightening morning horizon. For a moment, you watch as it climbs into the sky, before heading out of the barn and back out into the farm. No time to waste. After all, the cows aren’t going to feed themselves.

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