Andrea Mowers

I think the agriculture sector stands to benefit greatly from AI and drone/automation technology, but government subsidies will be needed to implement this technology and to train farmers in their effective use. Land will become more scarce as the planet’s population grows and the effects of climate change are realized over the next few decades, and this technology will undoubtedly allow farmers to increase their yields with less space.

The biggest hurdle will be lack of infrastructure, which will only make it more difficult to introduce new technology. However, I don’t know if relying solely on tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft is the best option to fix this problem. One needs to only look in our own backyard to see the negative effects of monopolized broadband Internet (frequent outages, slow speeds, high prices, poor customer service). Do we really trust these companies to have the farmers’ best interests in mind?

I think agriculture is one of the industries that hasn’t been using AI technologies to their full potential. A lot of farmers from developing countries are not educated/capable enough to use or even afford these technologies even if they were made available to them. To be successful with this the government subsidiaries will both need to provide the farmers with types of equipment and also the training adequate enough to use them. Even though the broadband connection has expanded secluded farmlands lack good connectivity to high-speed internet (this is a problem even outside of the developing countries). In countries like India where farmers can hardly afford an internet subscription, I wonder how partnering with big tech companies would beneficial to farmers?

I completely agree with this Andrea. In general misinformation about Covid-19 and the vaccine has been circulating and continues to circulate around Twitter. I do know that Facebook has ‘flagged’ and deleted misinformation that was posted and I do believe Twitter has done the same. I do believe AI technology can help sort, filter and flag the misinformation that is put on these different platforms, especially when it comes to important information that can help save lives.

To your other question, I do think we should teach children at a younger age about media literacy. Children spend a lot of time on the Internet and are easily susceptible to learning new information. As we are older in High School, we learn how to find and use credible sources for our research, I hope that they start to do this at a younger age so that the children are aware about which sources are credible and which are not.

The comments above point to how influential social media is in forming opinions and motivating certain behaviors. As many of us were confined to our homes during the pandemic, we were heavily relying on digital media like steaming services and social media for entertainment and an escape from our mundane lives. And because we weren’t going out and seeing fashion trends in real life whether it be at post-work happy hours, at the club, or on the train, many people began relying more on social media (Instagram and tik tok especially) for fashion inspiration. This trend was an opportunity many businesses tried to capitalize on through targeting paid ads with a “buy now” option on Instagram, for example.

In the WSJ article shared on this prompt, it states, “the pandemic has shown that consumers can and will embrace change, and they can do it quickly when innovation improves their everyday experience.” This is so true as we’ve seen ads better targeted to potential customers on Instagram in a way that is convenient to the potential customers because they see useful items that will improve their daily lives without actually searching for that item.

However, this drastic shift of turning toward the digital world as our real world environments were confined to our homes for the most part combined with increased distrust of government institutions was also a prime opportunity for technology such as deep fakes and manipulated videos to make a big splash. We saw that with the Nancy Pelosi video that came out in the spring of 2020 that made her appear intoxicated just by slowing down the video. This threat was so potentially serious to our national security that the CIA released a warning of deep fake technology ahead of the 2020 election. All of this shows the power of social media, algorithms and manipulated media, and how it can be used for both good and evil.