A restaurant in Dubai has unveiled what it says is the world’s first chef powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The Emirati city is renowned for its cutting-edge culinary offerings, but Woohoo stands out from the crowd thanks to the creations of Chef Aiman. This isn’t a cooking robot of the kind that has been previously seen flipping burgers in California or serving up noodles in Japan. Instead, Chef Aiman is an AI program that uses machine learning to create bespoke recipes. The AI program has been trained on thousands of recipes, decades of culinary research, and dishes and flavour pairings from around the world.
The system can even create a flavour sensation based on theoretical combinations. Diners have been offered ‘dinosaur tartare’, which was created using DNA mapping and is claimed to recreate the taste of extinct reptiles. Woohoo hasn’t shared exactly what goes into that one, but the dish has been described as a unique combination of raw meats served on a ‘pulsating plate’ for added atmosphere.
Machine learning allows AI chef to improve its culinary offerings
Dinosaur dishes aside, the restaurant says that Chef Aiman creates recipes by studying seasonality, customer preferences and global food trends. The machine learning program allows the chef to learn from food reviews, trends and even customer reviews to learn what does and doesn’t work and improve its offering, rather than just recreating existing recipes.
Chef Aiman still works alongside top human chefs, however. Skilled chefs do the actual cooking and finalise the presentation on the dishes and also have input on the recipes. Woohoo’s Turkish chef Serhat Karanfil oversees the cooking and says that there is often a to-and-fro discussion on the dishes. “If I taste it, for example, and it is too spicy, I talk to chef Aiman again. After we discuss, we find the right balance,” he told Tech Xplore. The restaurant said that AI chefs are not designed to replace their human counterparts, but to handle culinary data, improve recipes and suggest new ideas.
Chef Aiman is creating a buzz on social media, while Woohoo is leaning into its high-tech reputation, with sci-fi animations and AI-generated holograms adding to the futuristic dining experience. The restaurant says that it believes that the best experiences occur when creativity and technology come together, which is certainly the case with its AI-enhanced dining.
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