Episode 19: You Are What the Algorithm Eats
Every bite you take is shaped by algorithms you've never seen. In Part 1 of a special two-part edition of Algorithmic Anxiety, Wayne and Dave expose how AI now controls American food end-to-end: computer vision systems like Blue River's "See & Spray" decide which plants live or die, autonomous John Deere tractors turn farms into data operations, AI robots wielding hyperspectral sensors judge meat quality in processing plants, and machine learning models route your groceries by analyzing weather, TikTok trends, and panic-buying patterns. At home, your smart fridge reorders milk while nutrition apps built on your genetics tell you your grandmother's recipes are nutritionally suboptimal.
But efficiency has a price. Farmers become renters of their own tractors, locked into proprietary software they can't repair. Factory workers lose jobs to vision systems faster than they can retrain. Supply chains optimized for normal times shatter under crisis (remember 2020??). And as cooking shifts from skill to app-following, we're losing taste memory, cultural heritage, and bodily intuition in exchange for algorithmic recommendations. Worse, your biometric data, genetic information, and eating habits are being harvested, analyzed, and sold like any other product. From soil sensors to your dinner plate, we've outsourced one of humanity's oldest relationships - our connection to food - to black-box systems optimized for profit margins, not people.
Resources for this episode include the following
McKinsey & Co. "Ordering in..." https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/ordering-in-the-rapid-evolution-of-food-delivery
McKinsey & Co. "From bytes to bushels..." https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/from-bytes-to-bushels-how-gen-ai-can-shape-the-future-of-agriculture
Harvard Business Review “The Pitfalls of Pricing Algorithms” https://hbr.org/2021/09/the-pitfalls-of-pricing-algorithms
Reuters “NY Surveillance Pricing Law” https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/judge-dismisses-retailing-groups-challenge-new-york-surveillance-pricing-law-2025-10-08/
GenderEconomy “Changing the Five-Star Ratings Scale…” https://www.gendereconomy.org/changing-the-five-star-rating-scale-can-eliminate-effects-of-racism-on-digital-platform-workers/
USDA 2025-2026 Fiscal Year AI Policy https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fy-2025-2026-usda-ai-strategy.pdf
BBC “US farms are making an urgent push into AI. It could help feed the world.” https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240325-artificial-intelligence-ai-us-agriculture-farming
Univ. of Florida “Applications of Artificial Intelligence for Precision Agriculture” https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AE529