You can also bring up ‘Gordon Ramsay’

ㆍSouth Korea’s food tech startup, ‘Beyond Honeycomb’ has created an AI chef that automatically grills meat.

ㆍAI-powered chefs can recreate recipes from renowned restaurants by analyzing flavor profiles.

ㆍA new trend in cooking is emerging where chefs create and protect their own culinary content.

Today’s head cook is ‘AI chef’

We’ll grill you a delicious steak that’s mouthwatering to look at. All you have to do is place the meat on the grill and press the ‘Start Cooking’ button on the monitor. Our AI chef will take care of the rest. The chef will flip the grill and start grilling the steak. During the grilling process, the chef will use a red laser to measure the umami, richness, bitterness, moisture, and tenderness of the meat. The AI chef will continue grilling until the readings are just right. Once the chef is satisfied that the steak is cooked to perfection, he will place it on the plate. It tastes fantastic – no surprise. It’s an exact replica of a famous “human” chef’s recipe.

Recreate the magic touch of a human

Beyond Honeycomb utilizes advanced artificial intelligence technology to create a new standard in food preparation. The company’s AI robots are equipped with spectroscopic sensors that detect specific molecular changes in food as it cooks. The AI cooking analysis technology then calculates the degree of charring, grilling, and juiciness in numbers, allowing for the same texture and flavor as a human chef’s recipe. Beyond Honeycomb takes the taste of food that cannot be objectified numerically and commercializes it, with the aim of revolutionizing food preparation, which has traditionally been dependent on human senses and skills, through the power of technology.

Beyond Honeycomb has created Grill X, an AI model that can instantly measure the taste of food. The AI system uses a range of data, including Maillard reaction (the chemical process that causes meat to brown when cooked and creates a unique flavor), loss of juiciness, and fat content. The AI Chef was trained using various cooking data to replicate the same flavors. Over 10,000 cooking tests were conducted on beef, chicken, chicken breast, salmon, and other foods. Out of those experiments, 80 significant grilling patterns were defined. During cooking, the AI analyzes the results pixel by pixel through a spectroscopic sensor, expresses the results in numbers, and makes its own predictions and decisions about which grilling patterns will get the food closer to the target score. This process automates cooking and cuts cooking time in half. Currently, Beyond Honeycomb’s four AI chef robots can cook up to 32 servings in less than five minutes, providing perfectly cooked beef, pork, chicken, fish, and anything else that can be grilled.

Cooking copyright is important

Imagine if an AI chef could learn about every type of food on the planet. You wouldn’t need to make a reservation at a famous Michelin Guide restaurant anymore; you could just order from an AI chef. Even if it’s a delicacy from a faraway country that you can only get by traveling around the world. At CES 2022, Beyond Honeycomb’s AI chef cooked a popular dish from the movie “Parasite,” called “Chappaguri,” and it was a hit with attendees. The AI chef helped to spread Korean food culture. Currently, the company’s AI chef manages dining services at various corporate cafeterias, apartments, and hotels in Korea. Beyond Honeycomb plans to expand to Singapore, Australia, and Europe, starting with North America. This could also solve the shortage of grill cooks, who are often called “line cookers.” The company says it will continue to partner with well-known restaurants to collect data on their unique flavors and incorporate them into their offerings.

So, Cooking could be considered a work of authorship in the future, which means that chefs will need to copyright their creative recipes. This will involve organizing sophisticated data such as the degree of grilling, the amount of sauce, and the exact cooking time to prevent unauthorized use by AI chefs. Although “culinary copyright” isn’t a thing yet, copyright issues may arise in the future, just as they have for music, video, and content. Chefs are artists, and in the future, we may see a world where chefs are paid a royalty fee when their robotized dishes are sold. Beyond Honeycomb’s sustained target is to bring AI chefs to the home. If this is realized, tonight, if you have a craving for Gordon Ramsay’s Shepherd’s Pie tonight, simply update the ingredients in your home fridge and inform the AI chef. It will then bring ‘AI Gordon Ramsay’ into your kitchen with the most suitable recipe in a timely and efficient manner.