643207 Sun Aug 09 09:34:03 -0700 2009 4 33 Food Media and News 0 4930597 In a ramen restaurant just opened in Nagoya, Japan, the chef is a robot. "The benefits of using robots as ramen chefs include the accuracy of timing in boiling noodles, precise movements in adding toppings and consistency in the taste and temperature of the soup," said the robot's designer. Do you think the day will ever come when a robot will cook a dish that, if included in a line-up of dishes cooked by top human chefs, will not be picked out by expert tasters as machine-made -- or will be picked out as being better? I'm not talking of dishes CREATED by computers or robots; I don't think that they will ever match the flair, intuition and quintessentially human je-ne-sais-quoi of a genius chef, any more than I think that Michelangelo, if he were alive, would have to worry about a robot surpassing his Sistine frescos. But does cooking a bowl of ramen (which does rely on a sort of non-verbal intuition that would be very hard to break down into a computer program of the kind described in John Searle's "Chinese Room" gedanken-experiment, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room ) involve something a robot cannot be programmed to do, and do superbly? Can a robot ever do this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwcMsLbiarI Dan Barber, himself no slouch in the kitchen, once tried to summarize why David Bouley is a great chef and why he inspires the adulation of his line chefs. "His absolute fearlessness," Barber wrote (as quoted in Best food Writing 2006, Holly Hughes, editor), "and his profound, unabashed enjoyment of his own strangeness. That's the sort of dementia these cooks respect, and perhaps even share." And also, "he relies on observation, rather than inquiry, to understand things." How can a robot compete with that? Sun Aug 09 09:34:03 -0700 2009 11362 Brian S 1 4931543 Easily, ... ... by flash trading old school, "taste making", media parent companies into oblivion ... ... by DDOSing the likes of Ferran's site and boffing telecom on the one day the lines open for reservations ... ... by assiduously forcing the curve. When they can recognize their own reflection? Uh, "/fail/" Sun Aug 09 16:48:47 -0700 2009 4930597 67783 TheDescendedLefticleOfAramis 1 4950726 I sometimes wished a robot had cooked my pasta, ravioli, fish or steak. Seems like it would be a piece of cake. No distractions, no inattentiveness, no brain farts. I would hope they have a good UPS. Sun Aug 16 11:08:27 -0700 2009 4930597 137946 Scargod 1 4951687 So, we now have a question that is akin to devising a culinary Turing machine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine Sun Aug 16 19:05:09 -0700 2009 4930597 11826 Phaedrus 1 4951914 Robots are already capable of making a variety of foods to precise technical specifications... boxed cereal, juice, jams, instant meals, donuts, etc. A variety of technical instruments can measure qualities of a product such as sweetness, saltiness, density, etc. Given an advancement of robotics and software development I certainly don't think it's impossible... though in terms of software research the search for a program that can pass the Turing test (or the culinary equivalent) isn't particularly en vogue these days simply because the parameters are so vague and the problem is so difficult. Sun Aug 16 21:12:11 -0700 2009 4930597 10980 Blueicus