The full title should be “How the New Wave of AI Can Speed Adoption of New Technologies, Boost Productivity, Create New Well-Paying Jobs, and Democratize Innovation: The Case of Agriculture.”
We’re working on a study of the applications of AI to agriculture. We’ve laid out the main points that we are covering in an attached slide deck.
Here is a summary of the deck:
- People are worried that generative artificial intelligence (gAI)–and large language models (LLMs) in particular–will destroy jobs.
- We propose that LLMs should be thought of as a General Purpose Adoption Technology (GPAT) with the ability to break down some of the barriers to innovation that have held back stagnant sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.
- The key is that LLMs are democratizing: They will allow small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to experiment with, adopt, and maintain new technologies such as machine learning and robots with less need to depend on expensive third-parties such as systems integrators.
- To put it another way, today SMEs that want to digitize have to purchase scarce “complementary inputs” such as design, installation and maintenance expertise at a high price. LLMs lower the long-term cost of those complementary inputs, and make them more widely available
- The best analogy is the introduction of the personal computer. Previous to the PC, information technology applications were controlled by centralized IT staff. But the PC brought the IT revolution down to the level of SMEs and individual departments of large enterprises, and greatly accelerated the rate of adoption.
- Because GPATs reduce dependence on expensive intermediaries, the new adoption technologies will accelerate diffusion, boost productivity, lower prices, and raise incomes. Mounting evidence also suggests that faster productivity growth could also bring more job creation.
- Since 2007, sectors with faster productivity growth have added 2.2 million jobs, while sectors with slower or negative productivity growth have lost 1.2 million jobs.
- The new adoption technologies will aid a wide range of lagging industries, including manufacturing, construction, and food production.
- In this study we will focus on agriculture, which has suffered from the unhappy combination of weak productivity growth for the past 20 years and no employment growth. The result has been rising food prices, stagnant farm incomes, and weak rural incomes.
- We suggest that LLMs can accelerate the adoption of digital innovations on the farm (see Google’s Mineral), while boosting productivity and incomes, creating jobs and reviving local rural economies.
- We are already seeing applications of LLMs to agriculture, as the Farmers Business Network shows. We conclude by suggesting that applying LLMs to farming may reduce regional disparities.
