Highlawn Farm uses an automated milking parlor that monitors the health of every cow, milks them and tracks their feeding to an extent. Automation is controlled by a computer and can be interfaced by laptop or cell phone. Tuesday, April 09, 2024. (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)
LEE — If you’re looking for an example of artificial intelligence making a Berkshire County business more innovative and productive, you could start with a 101-year-old dairy farm known for its prized Jersey cows.
If that seems far-fetched, consider this: Because farm laborers are difficult to find, and because a family farm needs every advantage it can get, High Lawn Farm has used various forms of artificial intelligence — AI — to improve production.
It’s not the generative AI such as ChatGPT that has had people talking; no one is making deepfake butter here. But the technology helps the farm operate with four full-time workers, and helps the farm get more milk and dairy products to market.
A robot makes a trip around the barn to push food back at the cows while they feed. Tuesday, April 09, 2024. (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)
You might also look to North Adams, where digital multimedia artists working from the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art campus are envisioning the future of immersive art exhibits using AI-generated content and virtual reality.
“The beauty of it is that what was here six months ago is already ancient history,” Kinetek AI co-founder Eyal Rimmon said. “AI is developing at such rapid speed that three months from now we’ll be using tools that are not written yet.”
As a task force appointed by Gov. Maura Healey contemplates how the state might become a global leader in AI — and how that might help expand new industry and high tech jobs across the entire state — the technology is already at work here in the Berkshires.
“We want to play offense,” said Yvonne Hao, the state Secretary of Economic Development and a Williamstown resident. “This is about us figuring out ways to leverage AI to solve big problems — cure disease, fight climate change —to improve the lives of everyone here and around the world.
Yvonne Hao, the state Secretary of Technology Services and Security, is co-chair of Gov. Maura Healey’s artificial intelligence task force.
While many debate what AI means for the world, and whether there should be ethical and moral guardrails in place, one thing artificial intelligence is not is new. The algorithm that curates your social media feed and movie streaming service is run by a kind of AI. So are many of the software tools that are now essential to business and academic writing, and the facial recognition software used by law enforcement.
IBM defines AI as “technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities.” It’s machinery and tools such as personal computers, robots and sensors, using data to do those jobs.
In the case of High Lawn Farm, AI allows a herd of Jersey cows to visit the farm’s automated milking parlor on their own schedule, as many times a day as they wish. It also runs robots making sure their feed is lined up where the cows’ muzzles can reach it, and that the barn floor is scraped hourly.
As farm manager Aaron Ceuvas explained, happier, better-fed cows means more high-quality milk. In turn, that means more milk bottles on store shelves, and more value-added products like cheese and ice cream for sale at the farmhouse creamery.
“You almost don’t realize how much work those two machines save until one of them is down and you have to do that work yourselves,” Cuevas said.
Thirty-one miles to the north, in North Adams, generative AI — the kind that turns written prompts into writing, images and video — is being used to create immersive art exhibitions.
That’s where Rimmon, an independent film producer by trade, has partnered with digital artists and entrepreneurs Hugh and Debra McGrory to establish Kinetek AI, a media production company specializing in immersive art shows and digital art in virtual reality experiences.
The technology allows a person with a laptop to create effects and worlds that once required a small army of artists and programmers at firms such as Industrial Light and Magic, or Pixar Animation Studios.
“The art of using AI is to put together existing new code that is open source,” Rimmon explained. In this case, the digital artist selects AI code the same way a traditional visual artist “[looks] at a palette of colors, picks and chooses different shades and puts them together.”
Why North Adams? For starters, Rimmon has been here before, as a partner in several tech companies that sprouted in Northern Berkshire in the 1990s and made Mass MoCA’s sprawling campus their home.
“Mass MoCA is not just the largest contemporary art museum in North America. It’s also one of the most innovative ones,” Rimmon said. “There’s an incredible advantage of such a vast complex.”
How can AI be a game-changer for the Berkshires? To a person, Western Mass. members of Healey’s task force believe that if the state takes a leadership role in developing AI, it will benefit all corners of the state — the same way that the state’s commitment to life sciences have sparked a renaissance in Worcester.
“When I’m having conversations with folks at all levels of organizations — whether that’s at the entry staff level all the way up through senior leadership — AI has become a tool they’re all much more aware of,” said Ben Lamb, the vice president of economic development at 1Berkshire.
Task force members also agree that while generative AI will change the job market, it won’t eliminate jobs.
“Work will change over time but I believe it’s less about replacement and more about transformation,” said task force co-chair Jason Snyder, the state Secretary of Technology Services and Security. “It will change the way work is done and open up great new jobs.”
Jason Snyder, the state Secretary of Technology Services and Security, is co-chair of Gov. Maura Healey’s artificial intelligence task force.
Hao sees three main buckets for the AI economy: infrastructure, software platforms and applied AI used to solve problems. She sees the most opportunity in problem-solving; “that’s what we’re good at in Massachusetts,” she said.
If anything, the task force sees economic opportunity in AI rather than a threat. Snyder and fellow co-chair Hao agree it can be a means to tackling the state’s income inequality.
“We have a higher income per capita than any state in the country,” said Hao, a 1995 Williams College graduate and current board of trustees member. “But if you look at another statistic we are the third most unequal in terms of income inequality … that is crazy to me.
“We should be doing more to close that gap,” Hao added. “A big focus of [the] plan is to take state resources and really invest in and accelerate economic growth.”
That’s what leaders in the Western Massachusetts want to hear.
“We must think of AI as a tool and a new form of technology that enables us to become more efficient and get work done,” said Robert Johnson, president of Western New England University in Springfield and a member of the task force.
Task force member and Western New England University President Robert Johnson.
At Western New England, AI is already being used behind the scenes, Johnson said, from scheduling classrooms to housing assignments to the ID card for student meal plans.
In an era where AI-created content blurs the line between truth and fiction, educators “have a social responsibility within the Academy to give our students the skill set and the mindset to discern information and data and not accept something at face value,” Johnson said.
State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, also a member of the task force, is adamant that western Mass. should benefit from any state AI initiative.
“I’ll be looking for any of these big economic development initiatives to include the Berkshires. When we talk about manufacturing, there’s [a] long history of that here,” Farley-Bouvier said. She envisioned a scenario where lower prices for manufacturing in the Berkshires could lead to a medical device being designed with AI in Cambridge, and then built here.
Farley-Bouvier also shared the concerns of Williams College student Sneha Revanur, the founder of Encode Justice. That youth advocacy organization, an effort Revanur started at the age of 15, is working to convince world leaders that AI should have guardrails to protect democracy from “deepfake” video and audio that could swing an election, and other nefarious uses such as revenge porn.
Farley-Bouvier admitted that when she approached AI over the years, she did so in protection mode — “how to protect ourselves from the dangers,” she said. “I am very concerned about AI and elections…. Everyone can see why voter suppression would be a big factor in the 2024 presidential race.”
As for workforce development, Lamb and 1Berkshire CEO and President Jonathan Butler said that still remains a moving target as the technology develops and evolves at remarkable speed. But they noted the generation of future workers in high school and college already knows AI well, from the social media they consume to the software that corrects their spelling.
“When you talk to students, especially high school age, they are already in these systems organically,” Lamb said. “They’re using AI for social and some academic purposes. Much like our generation, they’re fairly digitally native.”
“This generation is really becoming the AI native generation in a lot of ways,” Lamb added. “It’s so pervasive, it’s on every platform. It’s already baked into the software they’re using for academics. … They’re already going to have tools in [their] back pocket, if they don’t already. It’s really an issue for the outside world to appreciate those skills.”
As leaders chart the future for AI in Western Mass., the work continues here.
Rimmon said Kinetek AI hopes to work with Mass MoCA to create a dedicated space for immersive art experiences at the museum. Presently, the company is working with digital artists on “Underscore,” an immersive art installation on the predicted impact of climate change conceived by Hugh McGrory. The experience “uses 12 large scale vertical screens and a moving image circular floor,” according to the company’s website.
Kinetek is also working with Glenn Marshall, whose AI-generated short film “The Crow” won the jury award at the Cannes Short Film Festival in 2022.
Back in Lee, the advantages provided by AI are allowing High Lawn Farm to spend resources carefully, and maximize the value produced by its prize Jerseys.
Highlawn Farm General Manager Caitlin Moriarty and Farm Manager Aaron Cuevas check their phones next to the computer that controls the milking parlor. (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)
“The less money we have to spend to get that product out the better,” Cuevas said. “It doesn’t matter what the size of the operation is. If you’re not spending the least amount of money to get your product out, you’re not doing well … the margins are always tight on any dairy farm.”
At Highlawn Farm, each cow has an ear tag with an ID chip used to monitor the cow’s health. The farm’s workers refer to the chips as the cow’s “Fitbit.” (Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle)
