AI tastebuds are better at identifying what's in food than you
Picking out individual ingredients from a dish can be a fun, if difficult, part of a meal. Professional chefs and food scientists can spend years refining their palettes. Now, a robot may be able to join in the activity thanks to the researchers behind a robotic taster that combines AI and an electronic tongue capable of detecting tiny differences in flavor.
The Penn State research team has published a paper detailing how the AI 'brain' uses the artificial tongue to detect how much water is in a cup of milk, the mix of beans in a coffee blend, and even incipient rot in fruit juice that would be impossible for a human to spot.
Electronics to identify components in a mixture isn't a new idea. That's how machines can measure things like acidity and temperature. But, what the researchers have done goes beyond that by using AI to mimic the way your tongue, nose, and brain interpret the taste of things beyond a simple detection of pH balance. Using the advanced sensors known as ISFET (graphene-based ion-sensitive field-effect transistor), the electronic tongue can measure a lot of complex chemicals at the same time instead of needing multiple kinds of sensors like a thermometer and pH testing stick.
The sensors produce a huge amount of data, which standard computer processors might take a while to sort out, and the analysis wouldn't tell you much about how watered down the milk is or how freshly squeezed your orange juice is. Instead, the researchers used AI in the form of a neural network that can mimic some of how humans process taste.
