Italiano
Is AI capable of cooking?
First thing first: a distinction has to be made between the creation of a recipe and its practical execution.
Ironically, the most used analogy to define the algorithm is precisely the “recipe”: the ingredients are the inputs; the various steps of cutting, blending and whatnot are part of a follow-chart; and, eventually, the goals to achieve.
Therefore, it is a more than obvious consequence that creating a recipe is bread and butter to AI.
Yeah, the terrible pun was intended.
Anyhoo… what kind of results come out of it?
On a viral video on YouTube, chef Joshua Weissman challenged AI to write three recipes: burgers, fried chicken and chocolate chip cookies. The panel of tasters (blindfolded, of course) decreed a landslide victory for the human chef.
Considering that it was the human who organized the challenge and posted it on his YouTube channel, well, I would have been surprised at a different outcome!
But now, the second question: can AI physically create a recipe?
An experiment was carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge, led by Dr Grzegorz Sochacki.
A robot chef, not initially programmed for the task, was shown 8 recipe videos (simple videos, created precisely for this purpose).
The robot managed to decipher the processes and ingredients with some success: out of 16 videos viewed, the robot recognized the correct recipe in 93% of cases, understanding the actions of the human chef in 83% of cases, in addition to having grasped nuances such as slight variations and errors in dosages.
Finally, the robot managed to create a recipe from scratch, taking advantage of Incremental Learning.
So? Do we fire all the chefs in the world and let AI cook?
Oh no… the system is still at a rudimentary level.
As Dr. Sochacki pointed out:
“The robot has done it on a rather limited scale and with a limited variety of dishes”.
And said dishes were salads, certainly not some sort of “haute cuisine”.
Besides that, the system wouldn’t be able, at this stage, to follow a more complicated video-recipe, like the ones you can find on the net.
So, let’s sum it up: this is a great starting point.
Still, there is much more to a dish than just an algorithm.
Creativity, emotions and instinct are not the preserve of computers.
At least, not yet…
Anyway: if you work in catering and/or hospitalityindustry and you are interested in my #copywriting and/or #contentwriting services, just DM me!
