Peter Thiel Is Betting Big On Solar-Powered Cow Collars (inc.com)
- Reference: 0181359632
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/04/06/0412251/peter-thiel-is-betting-big-on-solar-powered-cow-collars
- Source link: https://www.inc.com/chloe-aiello/this-startup-just-raised-220-million-for-ai-cow-collars-and-an-industry-disrupting-cowgorithm/91321971
> Halter plans to use the funding to expand its existing footprint in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, as well as to grow into new markets such as Ireland, the U.K., and parts of North and South America. The round is one of the biggest to-date in the industry, and comes amid growing adoption of the technology among U.S. ranchers. According to Halter, U.S. ranchers have erected some 60,000 miles of virtual fencing since the company's launch in 2024.
>
> Halter's technology works through a system of solar-powered collars and in-pasture towers that collect data -- some 6,000 data points per collar per minute -- from grazing cattle and feed it into a cloud-based platform and app for farmers. The collars are ergonomically designed to be comfortable for the cattle wearing them, and leverage AI to play audio cues or vibrate when it is time to move to a different grazing location or if they step outside of a predetermined zone. The collars can also deliver [3]an electric pulse if an animal does not respond.
>
> Halter's app also creates a digital twin of a ranch, which essentially means a digital replica that leverages real-time data to accurately reflect conditions. Farmers can consult the app to check on their herd, or fence, and move cattle with just a few clicks. Halter also has a proprietary algorithm that it calls a "Cowgorithm" trained on seven billion hours of animal behavior. Altogether, this technology is meant to make ranchers' lives easier when herding cattle, help them save money on building physical fencing, and provide insights about pasture management to improve soil health and pasture productivity. Halter says some 2,000 farmers and ranchers currently use its tech worldwide.
[1] https://www.halterhq.com/en-us
[2] https://www.inc.com/chloe-aiello/this-startup-just-raised-220-million-for-ai-cow-collars-and-an-industry-disrupting-cowgorithm/91321971
[3] https://www.halterhq.com/en-us/beef
Test run (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing to see here. Just a test run of the human collars coming in ~2040. Shocking, I know.
Re:Test run (Score:5, Funny)
Haha, no. Humans' collars are already here, we just keep them in our pockets and pay for them ourselves.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean for the true early adopters there's already Bluetooth enabled shock collars. Just on AI slopped app away to make the jump from the pocket to neck.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait... where can i get one of these "Bluetooth enabled shock collars"??? Asking for my kinky girlfriend...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Came here to say this. We know exactly who Thiel is. Bet there's a model for our forehead and a model for our wrist.
The eventual goal of these guys is (Score:2)
compliance collars for the masses, along the lines of the Star Trek episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion".
Go Vegan and Nobody Gets Hurt (Score:2)
Rather than thinking of better ways to raise more beef, it would better to reduce beef consumption.
Industrial beef production uses 70% of agricultural land for feed, pasture, water, etc. including lots of chemical inputs and massive amounts of CO2 produced by the cattle and the all of the agricultural activity.
Re: (Score:2)
The conspiracy theorist in me wants to point to the Lone Star Tick being genetically modified for this purpose... but that would be silly.
Re: (Score:3)
Nature has a way of correcting human errors.
Re: (Score:2)
Cool, but you could've argued the same without a vaguely threatening title.
Re: (Score:2)
I was talking about threats to farm animals, not humans.
Vegans are generally known to be non violent. (Just don't try to take away their tofu. /s)
Re: (Score:2)
Historically speaking, most humans are non-violent right up until you threaten their preferred protein abstraction layer. Vegans have tofu; carnivores have brisket; programmers have semicolons. Remove any of the three and the error handling gets energetic.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes.
As far as humans getting hurt, it also could apply to the well documented health damage of meat... Heart disease, cancer, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
How is meat-eating not threatening from the perspective of a cow?
Re: (Score:2)
The tech bros previously were investing in fake meat. It went through something of a boom and bust cycle as people eventually realized it wasn't all that healthy and still doesn't taste exactly like real beef. [1]Beyond Meat is close to bankruptcy. [thestreet.com]
It kind of makes sense, when you think about that most Americans are collectively fine with driving around in a machine that literally pollutes the air as part of its normal operation - from a big obvious tailpipe sticking out the back, no less. The idea that cow
[1] https://www.thestreet.com/retail/beyond-meat-ceo-blames-americans-for-company-problems
Re: (Score:2)
It's actually not even "cow farts". The problem is from the other end... cow burps. They produce an incredible amount of methane in their dual stomachs.
Would be interesting of these AI wired up cows would also monitor their CO2 production but the oligarchs probably aren't interested in that.
Re: (Score:2)
> And yes, we'll have cattle for a long time at least.
But eventually, we can eliminate cattle. And return the prairies to their original inhabitants. The buffalo. Who will commence grazing and burping methane.
Re: Go Vegan and Nobody Gets Hurt (Score:2)
Bison don't produce as much methane as cows
Re: (Score:2)
People could go Vicken and avoid beef and pork.
Honey, wake up, new hellscape just dropped (Score:2)
"You don't have to wear the bracelet if you just get the chip, you know."
Re: (Score:2)
Realistically, the status quo has arguably outrun the dystopia there. Your phone already does far more than anything you could get into the power envelope of a bracelet or embedded chip implant, and if for some reason you've raised enough eyebrows that you'd be hauled in for an RFID read DNA is a pretty indelible identifier.
It's not 100% ironclad; but penetration is broad enough that you've basically got the majority carrying highly fingerprintable RF beacons and the minority standing out for their relat
Re: (Score:2)
Phones for all their surveillance uses still won't serve up information about your body state to your employer, which constitutes some of the hype around a future of employers requiring wearables. The public applications are of the sort people would volunteer for: payment and identification including for physical access.
Granted I'm sure there are other technologies that could obsolete needing a chip, but my overall point is that these technologies are presented to the public as a negotiation of conveniences
Re: (Score:2)
The Mark of the Beast... for bovines?!?!?
Udderly terrible (Score:5, Funny)
It sounds like Peter Thiel is really trying to moo-ve the needle on AgTech.
If these collars are solar-powered, I guess you could say the 'steaks' have never been higher.
Re: (Score:1)
App should be called co(w)pilot!
I have an idea (Score:1)
Add in some basic "is the cow still healthy?" heat and high/low pulse tracking and then have a drone be automatically deployed with a camera to give the farmer a view of the cow to see if they broke their leg or got attacked or something.
But since it's Thiel, he'll just use it to control people and try and take over the world some more. I hope he gets kicked in the nuts by a cow.
Re: (Score:2)
Bold of you to assume he has any to kick.
Seems logical. (Score:2)
It's hard to train a cow to keep its cellphone charged; so you can see why you need something to keep their tracking collars topped up.
Re: (Score:2)
Can I get one of these for my daughter?
Needs one more thing (Score:2)
Add speakers playing pastoral music to make for contented cows, and I'm sold!
Where is Taylor Sheridan though? (Score:2)
Unless it has the Sheridan seal of approval, I am not investing.
Didn't Gary Larson think of this years ago? (Score:2)
E.g. his "The rural professional and his cow phone" cartoon has always been a favorite of mine, second only to the kid pushing on the door to the School for Gifted Kids marked "PULL".
This idea seems solid (Score:5, Insightful)
I’ve got plenty of gripes about Thiel, and the 2-billion dollar valuation is the standard I-estimate-my-company-as-being-worth-all-teh-mmmoonnaayyy.
But this idea seems solid and worth pursuing. It’s a real market, for real goods, that probably could benefit from some tech. There’s use case is extremely low on buzzwords. No AI. No blockchain. No crypto. Just a solid case for a hardware/software system that could probably improve actual physical productivity in an easily measurable way. The argument for using cloud infrastructure is pretty compelling.
The kicker is if costs can be low enough to justify, that’s a LOT of fairly advanced hardware to purchase, install, and deal with wear and tear in an aggressive outdoor physical environment, in order to get my cows to grow 20 percent better. Is it worth it? I have no clue, but that’s gonna be the main question to answer. Agriculture is a very-low-bullsh&t industry.
To the people who are griping about Thiel planning to use this on humans. Your worries are 5 years too late. We’re already shackled to devices that monitor and occasionally prod us in various directions. They’re about 7cm by 14cm by 1cm and we THINK that we’re the ones in control but who are we kidding?
Re:This idea seems solid (Score:5, Interesting)
> But this idea seems solid and worth pursuing. It’s a real market, for real goods, that probably could benefit from some tech.
Agreed. I live in the mountain west, and our forest and mountain landscapes are just covered with fencing, even though most of it is public land, because it's BLM "multi-use" land -- a lot of cattle graze on it. Fences are expensive to build and expensive to maintain. If you think a fence is something you build once and then ignore, you've never dealt with cattle.
Cowboys (and sheep herders) have a term "ride fence" as in "Bob, you're gonna ride fence today", and it's a regular and tedious task that means "get on your horse (or ATV) and ride past miles and miles of fenceline, looking for places where the fence is broken or going to break, and fixing them". It's necessary and expensive drudgery and having all of those fencelines is bad for other uses, and bad for wildlife. I've put down a few deer that jumped a barbed wire fence and didn't quite clear it, slicing their guts open and leaving them in agony as they slowly die.
In addition, there's an obvious tension between the cost of building and maintaining fences and the cost of rounding up cattle when it's time to move them. Obviously if you slice the land up into lots of small fenced areas, the cattle will be easy to find -- but they're also going to graze it out fast, so you're going to have to move them more often. If you use very large enclosures (common on BLM land), then your cows may have hundreds of square miles to roam and feed... but when it's time to move them you have to find them. Luckily they're herd animals so when you find a few you've found them all, but still. And occasionally, singles get separated from the herd and you just lose them, which isn't great since a cow is worth about $2k.
So... if we can replace those miles of expensive and constantly-breaking fences with virtual fences, that's good news for everyone. Wildlife and outdoorsmen can roam unimpeded, cattle can be far more tightly controlled, strays quickly identified, located and reunited with the herd -- via remote control!. This is an innovative idea that is worth quite a lot.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed also. Cattle rancher here in Central Texas with certified organic ranch and cattle. Another advantage is implementing rotational grazing, in which the herd(s) are moved every day or so to fresh grass. Doing so with fencing requires either a lot of fixed fencing or movable electric fencing. The first is expensive in materials and upkeep, the second in labor (moving the fencing every time the herd is moved). Virtual fencing is an excellent solution.
Another advantage to rotational grazing for organic r
I feel like this needs something (Score:3)
With a mobile app and some QR codes on the cattle, now you've got everything you need for dockless cow rentals!
Who do they consider stupid? (Score:2)
Do they consider cows stupid that the cows don't get it that there is nothing more to graze and they have to move, but that seems too complex a task they need a shock to get it? Or the farmer, that has two issues. One place overgrazed to become a hole where trees and people fall in. Probably stupid cows too. And another - totally overgrown area where no technology can get through.
"some 6,000 data points per collar per minute" (Score:2)
Almost as much as an Android phone. Impressive!
Washington State ... (Score:2)
... will really love cow tracking. As the basis for a new Climate Commitment Act tax applicable to cows for burping methane.
What? (Score:2)
How did early agrarian society ever survive without an AI telling your cows when to move to a different patch of grass to munch on?
As my father is a dairyman, this seems like a really expensive and stupid solution to a question that nobody ever asked in 5000+ years.
The cow already knows when to move to different pasture, because the grass is fucking short where they are.
I'm betting.. (Score:2)
On Peter Thiel being a rich white asshole.
Hey, I won!!!!
Get a Border Collie (Score:1)
and be done with it. Why are rich people so dumb?
Re: (Score:3)
Silicon Valley.
What's interesting is that this article leads with "Peter Thiel". Why? It's just standard VC stuff.
Dr Evil (Score:2, Funny)
> What's interesting is that this article leads with "Peter Thiel". Why?
When the AI-controlled stampedes head for blue cities during the election, don't say you weren't warned.
Re: (Score:2)
> Silicon Valley.
> What's interesting is that this article leads with "Peter Thiel". Why? It's just standard VC stuff.
New experimental system for mammals (like humans) which are controlled by electric collars that trigger when one of "thousands" of data points goes outside expected boundaries. Who did you expect to be behind this? Tom Hanks? Margot Robbie? Big bird?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I did expect Big Bird. He/she/they are behind nearly everything evil.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone blames the bird. Snuffy is pulling the strings.
Re:Get a Border Collie (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is it cheaper and easier to slap a collar on something than put up fences, train dogs, and hunt down strays. Manual labor is expensive and ranchers aren't exactly the type of folks to spend on new fangled tech that doesn't work. There's plenty of other ag tech that's been adopted over the years from milking machines to GPS-enabled tractors getting data on fertilizer placement. And the farmer's that haven't been pushed out of business have enough sense to do the calculations on return on investment on how tech investments will affect their bottom line.
Re: (Score:2)
"Virtual fencing" is literally the first part of the Halter sales pitch. Whether that works as well as the sales pitch remains to be seen. From their home page:
> Virtual fencing and shifting
>
> Access every acre without building permanent fence
> Move cattle instantly from anywhere on your phone
> Draw unlimited virtual fences and rotate pastures with a couple taps
Re: (Score:2)
The border collie helps round up the cattle but it would be easier if the rancher knows where the cattle are located to send out the collie. Some ranches can be hundreds of thousands of acres. And that is the main herd. If there are stragglers, they have to be located too.
Re: (Score:2)
> The border collie helps round up the cattle but it would be easier if the rancher knows where the cattle are located to send out the collie. Some ranches can be hundreds of thousands of acres. And that is the main herd. If there are stragglers, they have to be located too.
Border collies generally work with sheep, cows not as much simply because cows don't really give a damn.
But sheep you have to be careful with - an entire flock in the UK had to be euthanized because they figured how to escape their fencing
Re: (Score:3)
Nothing to do with herding them, it's to do with cattle management when you've got them spread over a large area. You can record where they are, whether they're getting enough food/water, whether they're sick or injured, etc. It's a huge improvement over either having no idea until you run across the carcass several months later or having farm hands spend several days each month going around guesstimating whether there are problems.