IBM Is Working On A Chef Computer That Creates New Foods
It is arguably said that men are the best chefs in the world. Well, in the next 5 years or so, computers may be giving them a run for their foie gras. Computer scientists at IBM are currently working on a supercomputer that will be able to create new innovative, delicious, and healthy food combinations/recipes.
Lav Varshney, a computer scientist at IBM says, “The goal in computational creativity is to come up with new things that have never been seen before.”
But why focus on food you ask? “Because food is so visceral,” says Varshney. “Everyone eats. It helps define our culture.”
How exactly is this computer to come up with great new recipes? Firstly, it will need to be given a database of already existing recipes.
“Then we remix them, substitute things, so all kinds of other modifications and generate millions of new ideas for recipes,” explains Varshney.
“The second step is to take those millions of ideas and find the best ones. To do that we try to predict what humans will find flavorful, based on some basic ideas from chemistry and psychology.”
One such theory is flavor pairing. “The basic idea is that two ingredients that share a lot of flavor compounds will go together well in Western cuisine,” Varshney elaborates.
IBM is hoping that it could breakdown the way that people enjoy food to its most basic chemical and molecular structures, allowing to create novel recipes that will both taste delicious and help fight the obesity problem in America.
One major goal will be to help restructure school lunch menus. The computer and all its programming is hoped to be completed in the next 5 years.
Paul Hudson | Elite.