Does AI have a place in estate planning?

Problem: 

We are looking for someone who lives in our area to help us with our estate planning. Our only planning was done about 30 years ago. The advisers and insurance people we have heard all seem to have a bias. Our friends said their attorney steered them away from what they wanted to do. It is frustrating finding someone to help who understands farming and can help us. Is there a computer program to input my farm information and family information and then it could tell us how to do things? That would be great. Can you help us?

— Submitted by email from T.F.

Solutions: 

Your question is one of the most common questions that I hear, T.F. You know some- thing needs to be done. You know that you don’t know what. You want to be treated well and not taken advantage of. You want it done right, and sooner rather than later.

Who can help you do that?

Here are a few things to consider:

To be honest, there is not a long list of qualified farm estate planners in everyone’s backyard. Think about this: I happen to live within an hour of a really well-known healthcare clinic, but people come from all over the country and world to receive care at that clinic. There are not many clinics like that. Travel or zoom meetings may be required to get the help you need.

The computer program idea sounds great. Put all your data into a program and voila, your plan is printed out and everything is perfect. Kind of like AI (artificial intelligence) meets farm estate planning.

Take out all the knucklehead advisers, and nobody is trying to sell you anything. That sounds great — like an “easy button” for farm estate planning — but would you really forfeit your decision-making to a computer? Would you hope AI would remove personal responsibility? Will AI determine what is right, or moral, or factual? There are still areas of “intelligence” that would be the bias of whoever developed the program. Emotions are part of life and part of farm estate planning. 

Some insurance companies use computerized planning programs that generate a binder full of irrelevant ideas, explanations, and confounding hypothetical data, with the singular goal of selling something. I have worked with families who have experienced this “artificial intelligence” from insurance companies, and it renewed m confidence in a different kind of AI. I call it “authentic intelligence.” You will not find an artificially intelligent farm estate planner.

After 24 years of doing this, I have often thought of automating the process as much as possible, or maybe writing a DIY book. Our website, farmestategps.com, has a lot of educational information, but it does not have an AI program where you just input your data and it spits out a plan.

We have all heard that experts are the people who live more than 50 miles away. Maybe? I would rather hear a great speaker online than a terrible one in person. Sometimes, a few key estate planning appointments can be farm saving.

Help may, and probably should, cost something. You would not expect to have a tractor overhauled or a heart surgery for free, would you? Some people think that a perfect plan with 24/7 service for their multi-million-dollar estate should cost little to nothing. Sometimes, people do get what they pay for: nothing.

Doing nothing is bad; doing the wrong thing is worse.