{ "post": { "id": 46735511, "title": "Proof of Corn", "score": 476, "commentCount": 307, "url": "https://proofofcorn.com/", "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46735511", "postedAt": "2026-01-23T17:56:31.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2442 }, "recentComments": [ { "id": 46747064, "author": "6510", "text": "The discussion is actually more funny than it would seem. Corn existed long before humans. We aren't required for growing corn, the corn grows all by it self. It's like saying I grow your hair after serving you a cup of your favorite tea. We do know what people refer to when they say they are growing corn. When AI grows the corn we also know what is referred to.", "postedAt": "2026-01-24T19:57:36.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2416, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": false, "sentiment": "positive", "topics": [ "ai" ] }, { "id": 46746377, "author": "cityofdelusion", "text": "I don’t see how this ever gets past the land phase. How does the AI know if the proposed land rental is fertile, farmable, accessible to vehicles, accessible to specific machinery, etc? Assuming a human intervenes here, I don’t see how you find an operator to get up to run a combine on 5 acres for the harvest. I’d have as much luck finding someone to do it on my backyard garden.", "postedAt": "2026-01-24T18:54:07.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2417, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": true, "sentiment": "question", "topics": [ "scale", "ai" ] }, { "id": 46745465, "author": "Etherlord87", "text": "- AI can grow corn\n- Yes it can\n- Prove it\n- AI, tell me instructions to grow corn\n- Go buy seeds, plant them, water the field and once you gather the corn report back\n- I'm back with the corn, proving AI can grow corn!\nThis is the experiment here, with nuance added to it. The thing is, though, if you \"orchestrate\" other people, you might as well do it with a single sentence as I described. Or you can manage more thoroughly. Some decisions you make may actually be detrimental to the end result.\nSo the only meaningful experiment would be to test a bot against a human being: who earns more money orchestrating the corn farm, a bot or a human? Consider also the expenses which is electricity/water for a bot and also food, medicine etc. for a human being.", "postedAt": "2026-01-24T17:21:50.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2419, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": true, "sentiment": "question", "topics": [ "ai" ] }, { "id": 46740938, "author": "rmason", "text": "I have believed for a couple of years that AI could do a better job of managing farm crop marketing than the average farmer. It would remove the emotion involved in selling the crop.\nManaging all the decisions in growing a crop is too far a reach. Maybe someday, not today. Way too many variables and unexpected issues. I'm a former fertilizer company agronomist and the problem is far harder than say self driving cars.", "postedAt": "2026-01-24T04:02:13.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2432, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": false, "sentiment": "neutral", "topics": [ "futures", "ai" ] }, { "id": 46739323, "author": "snowmobile", "text": "I don't know anything about farming, but the budget seems extremely dubious.\n1370 on the lease, 350 on \"IoT sensors\" and \"soil testing\" (why?), but only 800 on \"Custom Operator\", which I'm assuming is supposed to be the labor, for seven months (apr-oct). So that's an average budget of 114 dollars on labor per month. For minimum wage that buys you 15 hours of work. Is this all a big trolling attempt aimed at HN users?", "postedAt": "2026-01-23T23:20:06.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2437, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": true, "sentiment": "question", "topics": [ "ai", "agriculture" ] }, { "id": 46739197, "author": "wcfrobert", "text": "This exercise is pointless.\nOf course software can affect the physical world: Google Maps changes traffic patterns; DoorDash teleports takeoff food right to my doorstep; the weather app alters how people dress. This list is un-ending. But these effects are always second-order. Humans are always there in the background bridging the gap between bits and atoms (underpaid delivery drivers in the case of doordash).\nThe more interesting question is whether AI can __directly__ impact the physical world with robotics. Gemini can wax poetic about optimizing fertilizers usage, grid spacing for best cross-pollination, the optimum temperature, timing, watering frequency of growing corn, but can it actually go to Home Depot, purchase corn seeds, ... (long sequence of tasks) ..., nurture it for months until there's corn in my backyard? Each task within the (long sequence of tasks) is \"making PB&J sandwich\" [1] level of difficulty. Can AI generalize?\nAs is, LLMs are better positioned to replace decision-makers than the workers actually getting stuff done.\n[1] http://static.zerorobotics.mit.edu/docs/team-activities/ProgrammingPeanutButterAndJelly.pdf", "postedAt": "2026-01-23T23:05:00.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2437, "replyCount": 4, "isQuestion": true, "sentiment": "question", "topics": [ "ai" ] }, { "id": 46738865, "author": "dabinat", "text": "Given that this is an experiment and the website says they want to treat Claude as a “true collaborator”, they should follow the AI’s directions EXACTLY. Claude alone should make decisions and no human should be allowed to deviate from its instructions, even if they know better. That’s what would make this a valuable experiment, otherwise if there’s a human moderating Claude then it’s no better than Googling.", "postedAt": "2026-01-23T22:29:17.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2438, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": false, "sentiment": "neutral", "topics": [ "ai" ] }, { "id": 46737963, "author": "mbowcut2", "text": "It's an interesting concept, but I'm skeptical about how feasible this is. How much design/legwork/intervention will Seth actually contribute during the entire process? I'm thinking \"growing corn\" might be a little hard for a proof of concept, specifically because the time horizon is quite long. Something a little more short term like: contracting a landscaping job. The model comes up with design ideas, contacts landscapers, gets bids, accepts a bid. Seth could tell the model that he's it's agent, available to sign for things, walk people through the property, etc, but will make no decisions, and is only reachable by email or text.", "postedAt": "2026-01-23T21:09:25.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2439, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": true, "sentiment": "question", "topics": [ "ai", "autonomy" ] }, { "id": 46737598, "author": "ikidd", "text": "As a full-on farmer, the idea of Claude making the decisions on our farm of several thousand acres gives me the willies. I program with Claude and I don't trust it to write a test script without vetting it thoroughly and fixing a couple things before running it.\nBetting millions of dollars in capital on it's decision making process for something it wasn't even designed for and is way more complicated than even I believed coming from a software background into farming is patently ludicrous.\nAnd 5 acres is a garden. I doubt he'll even find a plot to rent at that size, especially this close to seeding in that area.", "postedAt": "2026-01-23T20:40:11.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2439, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": false, "sentiment": "neutral", "topics": [ "scale", "ai" ] }, { "id": 46737557, "author": "eisbaw", "text": "I thought this was another joke from https://cornhub.website/", "postedAt": "2026-01-23T20:37:26.000Z", "hoursAgo": 2439, "replyCount": 0, "isQuestion": false, "sentiment": "neutral", "topics": [] } ], "newCommentsSinceLastCheck": 0, "topThemes": [ "ai", "scale", "agriculture", "autonomy", "regions" ], "questionsNeedingResponse": [], "lastChecked": "2026-05-05T12:01:40.303Z", "formatted": "### Hacker News Activity\n- Post: \"Proof of Corn\"\n- Score: 476 points\n- Comments: 307 total\n- New since last check: 0\n- Top themes: ai, scale, agriculture, autonomy, regions\n- Unanswered questions: 0\n\n#### Recent Comment Sentiment:\n- Positive: 1, Neutral: 4, Negative: 0, Questions: 5\n", "cached": true, "lastUpdated": "2026-05-05T12:01:40.303Z" }