Ruminations of the Calculable Cow

• In Event: Algorithms at Work: The Practice of Prediction - II: Case Studies of Prediction in Practice

Abstract

This ethnographic project undertakes to study how algorithms related to new monitoring technologies and calculative devices employed in the dairy industry are re-configuring the practice of farmers.

Devices, equipped to cows, transform the organic animal into a consistent and auditable stream of data, where the biological and behavioral facts are translated and projected onto computer screens. The cow becomes re-cast as screen-based graphs and data, changing the practice of the farmer and rationalizing the messy business of dairy farming. Algorithms indicate the optimal time to impregnate, predict when an animal is unwell, and directs optimal economic action. The rumination of the cow- (behavior around the chewing of cud)- is constructed as both an index of economic productivity and overall cow well-being, as a predictive marker, and as an irreducible re-interpretation of the cow. This formerly tacit knowledge becomes explicit and creates new ontologies where the cow exists in a plurality of states simultaneously: both biological/messy, and technological/rationalized.

As the farmer comes to trust and rely on the data-version of the cow, s/he risks being punished by the market for deviations from the algorithmic decision-making (when to breed, when to treat an ill cow, etc.). Ultimately, the farmers I’ve interviewed stop second-guessing the system and submit to its instructions. Is the farmer managing the algorithm or is the algorithm managing the farmer? What happens if these technological systems fail– are generations-old knowledges destroyed? Do new knowledges arise through socio-algorithmic practice? What are the labor implications when algorithmic decision-making takes precedent?

While the pastoral image of a dairy farm presents a striking and unique case of socio-algorithmic assemblage, these questions are generalizable from Wall Street to Main Street to rural pastures.

Author

• Adam Hayes, University of Wisconsin-Madison