Greetings hive mind! I'm excited to present my #foodstudies20 workshop on #ArtificialIntelligence, Global #FoodSystems, #SocialInequality & #HigherEducation. AI is a tidal wave: we can curse it, or ignore it, and get slammed by the break - or we can grab a surfboard. Game on

My name is Rob Chiles; I'm an Asst Prof @Penn_State in Rural Sociology, Food Sci & @RockEthicsPSU. I first led this workshop in January, and I'm stunned at how quickly AI has rushed into the void left by #Covid_19. Pre-crisis trends have only accelerated. #foodstudies20

Big data, IoT, cloud/edge, bioinformatics, etc are transforming traditional ag companies into tech companies (e.g. John Deere) & tech companies into ag companies (e.g. Amazon+Whole Foods; Microsoft FarmBeats). AI will hit rural & mid-level white collar workers especially hard.

Academics are also at risk, both directly (MOOCs, AI tutors, AI-based literature reviewers, AI-guided hypothesis testers) and indirectly (through a decline in the number of families who can afford to send their kids to college); we've already seen post-covid faculty layoffs.

At the same time, AI could also unleash an entire new "collaborative commons," wherein "prosumers in vast continental & global networks will be producing & sharing... at near zero marginal cost, bringing the econ into an era of nearly free goods & services (Rifkin, 2014)."

Ready to take Rob's AI Challenge?? Here we go:

A. What impact do you see AI having on your research & career?

B. What aspects of your job would you like to automate - can you?

C. "Which aspects of work in your industry are most likely to be virtualized in the next 3-5yrs?"

D. "Fill in the blank: If our competitors implemented a successful machine learning system for X, we’d be in serious trouble" @amcafee @erikbryn 2017

E. Agree/disagree: "Let the robots take our jobs, and let them help us dream up new work that matters." @kevin2kelly 2016

Thx!