I have three daughters. Who knew having daughters would be a life-changing experience? I was surprised that young daughters meant naked Barbie dolls strewn about the house. I stopped asking “why” … accepting the reality of that decade. Before daughters, tea was a pleasant morning drink; after daughters, I participated in parties devoted entirely to the beverage.

Before daughters, I never had a manicure, but Dad has 10 fingernails for practicing manicures. A pro tip for any surgeons: A nail extension on your pinky finger is useful for tearing the connective tissue on a castration.

Daughters in my life has changed my entertainment choices. For most of my life, I didn’t have a favorite princess movie. Now I have a ranked list of my favorite princess movies. When my son and I are home alone, we watch a Western or a shoot ’em up movie. When the girls guide our entertainment, this selection is wildly different. Romance movies are a staple in our house. I expected that, but conversely, my girls are really into dystopian movies.

I am forced, as a father, to understand topics that never interested me as a young man. I was never really into barrel racing, but now I have a baseline aptitude. I had never seen a rodeo queen contest; now I can dissect a contest with the best nitpickers. Volleyball never appealed to me, but now I know more about the sport than the referees do … or so I think. Back to dystopian fiction – I’m no expert, but I do know the fundamentals.

If you need a primer on dystopian fiction, the genre is intimately intertwined with utopian notions. Ursula K. Le Guin wrote “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” which neatly boils down the balance between a utopian and dystopian sensibility. The 1973 short story describes a utopian city idyllic in every way. That peace, prosperity and enlightenment depends on the perpetual misery of a single child living in a windowless room. As long as the child is in perpetual misery, the society will flourish. The utopia will collapse without the child, everyone knows this, and everyone accepts this morally challenging trade-off. The miserable child in this story is the dystopian part of the utopian city.

Fiction can mirror real life. This utopian/dystopian dichotomy is evident in today’s society. We live in a utopia of overwhelming abundance. The countervailing dystopia is a bored and anxious society that misapplies identity for purpose. There is always a dystopia that results from or even supports a utopia.

Our cultural betters are currently constructing a new utopia. Artificial intelligence (AI) promises a utopia, bettering our lives with entertainment, health care, logistics, finance and endless other possibilities. We should see a cure for cancer and other currently incurable diseases, driverless and other workerless industries, and entertainment without the hazard of cantankerous human entertainers. This is the promise of AI, and as with all technology, we have no idea how it will be used and abused in the future.

An entire Netflix queue lists dystopian movies about robots going rogue. But the most pressing dystopian aspect of AI is the massive electricity demand required by AI. Did you know that a simple Google search uses 0.3 watt-hours of electricity? That is the equivalent of powering a 60-watt light bulb for 17 seconds. Not very much … except there are a billion Google searches every day. That same light bulb powered for 17 billion seconds is almost 540 years of illumination. If that same search uses AI, the power usage increases by tenfold. And electricity demand will increase exponentially as AI capability expands.

Imagine a world of rolling blackouts because grid power is directed to massive data centers. Imagine limited power at home, our factories and our farms. How dystopian is Idaho agriculture when electricity goes to AI instead of food growing and processing? Is AI smart enough to sustain life without food? Idaho is known for its inexpensive electrical rates. Idaho’s irrigation system of dams is the same infrastructure providing hydroelectric power. Farmers benefit from this inexpensive power, and technology companies are taking notice. AI runs on data centers, and data centers are popping up around the state. These electricity-hungry facilities will expand into Idaho until our electricity is less available and more expensive.

Idaho is the birthplace of nuclear power. Arco was the first city to be electrified by nuclear power, and the neighboring Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is still pioneering nuclear technologies. INL is developing smaller reactors delivered by a truck producing power for three to seven years before refueling. Could this technology power the farm of the future? Or should hydroelectric power that follows the rhythm of an irrigation cycle be used for agriculture with nuclear technology powering data centers? These questions will be answered over the next several years, whether we in agriculture participate in the discussions or not.

The line between utopia and dystopia is very clear in fiction. The colors are bright and happiness abounds in a utopia, and darkness is the theme in the corresponding dystopia. In the real world, that line is less distinct but no less prominent. As decisions about our future are made, will Idaho agriculture be on the utopian side of the story, or will Idaho agriculture struggle … a dystopian farm?