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Prime Future 261: the newsletter for innovators in livestock, meat, and dairy

Perhaps you are the CEO of a meat processor or the COO of an animal nutrition company, a cattle feeder, or the owner of a multi-site dairy. Maybe you’re a swine vet or a poultry nutritionist, maybe you’re a startup founder or a venture investor.

That’s all great because every past issue of Prime Future has been for you.

Today’s issue, however, is not.

No, this edition is for your kid, your niece, your nephew, your grandkid, your neighbor, or your mentee — this one is for college students and recent grads.

In fact, today’s newsletter is not behind a paywall because I hope you forward it to the high-talent, aspiring young person who is wondering how to reconcile what they are hearing in their animal science or meat science class — or what they’re learning firsthand on the farm, ranch, or feedlot — with everything they’re seeing on TikTok about AI wiping out all the good jobs.

My only objective today is to offer some encouragement to the person who is just starting their career in the business of livestock, meat & dairy. Because it is a fabulous time to be alive — and starting your career.

I could write a book about why I believe this, all the way down to my toes. But for now, suffice to say that this is an industry that literally enables humans to thrive, with products that are more in demand than ever, that has gotten way better at doing what we do and still has so much room to improve, and that is at the cusp of technology playing a bigger role in every single domain.

It is an exciting time, but you need to tap into two superpowers to fully take advantage of the opportunity — let’s talk about them.

Superpower #1: Ignore the AI doomsdayers.

Whether the alarm is coming from your uncle, your buddy, or someone on TikTok — ignore the AI predictions that knowledge workers will be replaced. That noise is unlikely to go away over the next decade, and it will probably get louder before it fades.

If it ends up being true, then it's not something you can control anyway — but I do not believe it will. I recently wrote about why I’m so over the exaggerated tech bro AI doomsday scenarios:

“I have zero doubt that AI will be the defining technology of the next 20+ years. But I have a lot of doubt around the way AI investors and founders frame the technology — both the utopian benefits and the doomsday apocalyptic downsides.

Look at every single technological revolution in the past — from the printing press to automobiles & tractors, from the industrial revolution to the Internet — and you’ll find that there were people saying the new tech would increase unemployment and reduce the need for humans.

And every single time, that’s proven not to be the case — tech was introduced, some jobs were lost, some work changed, but the defining feature was that new frontiers of economic growth were created, which…drum roll please….opened up new jobs. Rinse, repeat. Positive net economic effect.

These may be words we laugh at in hindsight, but why would this time be any different?”

One example: an agtech VC recently predicted that 100% of agronomists will be replaced with AI. 🙄

My friend Shane Thomas, author of Upstream Ag Insights, shared a contrarian view:

This disparity in opinions reminds me of a fantastic quote:

“Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.”

We can debate this all day, though only time will tell — but I generally categorize blanket predictions like “AI will replace every <insert specialization>” as overly simplistic pessimism for humanity.

While the person who predicts 100% of agronomists will be replaced by AI sounds bold at face value, maybe even prescient, it demonstrates a misunderstanding of history, agriculture, and humans — and the actual role of agronomists.

That’s why I appreciate Shane’s more nuanced view, and the explanation behind his prediction:

Check out Shane’s full article on this topic from Upstream Ag Insights.

That’s tough to argue. Now replace “agronomist” with nutritionist, veterinarian, meat scientist, etc — and it still checks out.

A lot of folks making sweeping AI projections have ulterior motives, whether trying to sound smart or trying to raise capital, but lack a solid footing in reality. It’s unfortunately kinda cool right now to assume that AI will take over the world, and kinda lame to think that AI will be just another powerful, useful tool in the human’s toolbox. No worries — I never claimed to be cool.

There are two additional reasons Shane’s prediction, that <10% of specialized advisors will be replaced by AI, translates over to the livestock industry:

A) The knowing-doing gap.

A friend of mine is a physical therapist. What is the primary barrier she faces in helping her patients improve? It’s not knowledge, it’s adherence to the exercises — it’s putting knowledge into practice. If the issue were simply a lack of knowledge, then not only would PTs be in grave danger of being replaced by AI, but Google would have already replaced them.

But it’s not that PT patients don't know what to do — it’s that there’s a disconnect between knowing and doing. For any number of reasons, there’s a gap between ideal and execution.

Some version of that gap exists everywhere in production ag for various reasons, because no production ag business operates exactly how a textbook would indicate. Employees call in sick, extreme weather hits, disease breaks out, the Internet (and connected equipment) goes down — there are always X factors that make the real world more complicated than a classroom.

That’s why wisdom — knowing how, when, and why to apply knowledge — will always be a superpower:

“Judgment and discernment have always been superpowers when layered around knowledge and expertise. But in a world where knowledge is ubiquitous, and therefore less valuable, wisdom becomes more valuable than ever:

The ability to think, the ability to use tools in the most effective way (yes, including AI), the ability to know when to pick the tool up, how to use it, and when to set it down.”

Humans have access to a much wider range of inputs and data points to base their judgment on than an AI tool does. And humans can connect the knowledge to the context of the output in a way that general GenAI alone cannot.

Which brings us to the biggest kicker, and the other reason Shane's prediction makes so much sense in regard to the livestock industry:

B) AI can’t analyze data that hasn’t been collected.

I was talking with someone this week about the challenges of applying AI to soil, given how limited the available data is, and given the many unique characteristics of soil, particularly for any given hectare, acre, meter, or foot of ground.

Despite the progress made in precision farming and precision livestock management, the vast majority of ‘data points’ that drive decisions are qualitative and observed, rather than quantitative and captured (even if “vast majority” is too strong of a statement, many decisions are still driven by rules of thumb and averages in the absence of more precise data collection.)

And you can’t run an AI analysis of data that doesn’t exist.

A mega idea that AI-will-replace-all-the-people doomsdayers seem to have forgotten is this:

The digital world exists in support of the physical world, not the other way around.

And in the complexity of raising and feeding livestock, the physical world still provides the best and richest context for most decisions that livestock producers make. Until an LLM has eyes to see animals and ears to talk to employees about what they’re seeing — or sensors¹ to collect data as a proxy for both — humans will have the advantage.

Superpower #2: Become great in your domain, and be AI-fluent.

Wisdom, discernment, and judgment — get some. Learn from the best, get as much useful experience as you can.

And, use every tool at your disposal — including, and especially, AI.

Be the person who teaches the old farts in your office how to use ChatGPT like a pro while getting the chance to listen and learn from their decades of experience.

As an undergrad I interned in Cargill’s poultry processing business in Nicaragua. While I was trying to improve my Spanish, everyone in the office was trying to improve their English. So we finally came to an agreement: in the mornings we spoke English and in the afternoons we spoke Spanish. Two-way coaching. Being fluent in AI will create opportunities for two-way mentor relationships — that can change your trajectory.

Start out with the best company (and manager) that you can, with a reputation for developing young talent.

Be the person who gets more done because you’re saving time by smartly using AI tools.

Know when to pick the tool up, how to wield it most effectively, and when to put it down.

Know how to use AI super effectively, AND know how to think without it.

I’m convinced AI doomsdayers are unintentionally playing a cruel joke on the next generation, which will have real unintended consequences.

A friend shared with me a recent conversation he had with a smart, ambitious, hard-working 20-year-old college student who feels that he needs to earn enough in the next five years to retire, because AI will replace all knowledge workers by the time he is 25. For someone whose brain is not even fully formed yet to feel that kind of pressure is nothing short of tragic, and an unintended consequence of the AI exaggerators.

The irony is that the more people who buy the humans-are-about-to-be-irrelevant story, the more opportunity it creates for those who are wise enough to reject that narrative — which means it won’t be difficult to be exceptional.

AI can be a force multiplier for those who are great at their jobs and great with people. Compounded over time, the result should be higher earnings. Pessimists sound smart, optimists make money.

In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, humans would work fewer than 15 hours per week due to technological advancements. Wow, was he right about the staggering magnitude of technology advancements in that 100 years, and wow, was he wrong about what impact they’d have on the workweek.

That’s because human nature doesn’t change, and the laws of economics don’t change. AI will bring some degree of creative destruction — some jobs will go away, some new jobs will emerge, most jobs will be done differently.

But who is best positioned to react to that inevitable creative destruction? It’s people just starting their careers who don’t have preconceived notions or expectations about how a job typically gets done. The advantage goes to the beginners. You’ll be the first generation to use AI your entire career — how awesome to think about what that will unlock and what it will enable you to do 10x better.

Production ag will look different in 5, 10, 20, 30 years — and so will every job of people who sell products and/or services to producers. There’s nothing new about change — that’s how it has always been and hopefully how it will always be. Lean into that fact, find ways to accelerate it.

In agriculture, we often discuss the importance of attracting young talent to the industry, since we need the brightest minds and individuals who genuinely care about the business to advance it. Here’s where that gets practical in this moment of AI mania:

If you’re mid-career and beyond, pushing back on the idea that AI will replace humans is as important as embracing AI tools and putting them to work. Don’t get discouraged, get curious.

If you’re younger, don’t let the “AI will replace everyone” attempts-at-sounding-smart-disguised-as-predictions scare you or steal an ounce of energy that could be channeled into doing great work and building your career. Don’t get discouraged, get curious.

So college students and recent grads, jump in and get after it — there’s no shortage of opportunity in this space. Whether it’s animal health, animal nutrition, genetics, processing, or anything in between — these critical fields are and will always be important and necessary to producing animal protein.

What a legitimately stupendous time to be alive — and starting a career in ag 😉

College students — email me at primefuture@substack.com with how you and your peers are using ChatGPT and other genAI tools, and I’ll comp a one-semester subscription to Prime Future.

1. Clearly, more tech products are enabling more decisions to be made with data from wearables, cameras, etc — but the whole category is still early. And even as it grows, with more sensors capturing more granular data to drive more frequent decisions, the data will still be most useful in the hands of someone who knows how to use it well.