World's First AI-Generated Whiskey Coming Later This Year (barrons.com) 86
Microsoft, best known for developing Windows, has a thirst for something new: whiskey. The tech giant is co-developing the world's first computer-generated blend using artificial intelligence. From a report: For centuries whiskey has been cultivated by craftsmen drawing on knowledge and experience passed through generations. Single-malts have long been considered superior to blends, which are made by combining a number of single malts. One of the world's most expensive single-malts, a Macallan 1946, sold at an auction for a $460,000, while a Chivas Regal Royal Salute blend, which was created in 2002 to celebrate the golden jubilee of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, has sold for $10,000 a bottle. But now Microsoft has teamed up with Swedish distillery Mackmyra and Finnish consultancy Fourkind to use what's being dubbed as the world's first "bionic blender" to create the perfect tipple. Machine learning analyzes existing recipes, sales data and customer preferences to generate a dataset of more than 70 million recipes that a robot predicts will be popular. While Microsoft's leap from software to spirits might raise eyebrows in the Highlands of Scotland, the American software giant says its digital distiller will not replace the expertise and knowledge of human experts.
all i need is black label (Score:1)
and I'm perfectly happy
Shark's with AI (Score:2)
AI Jumping sharks with lasers
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Build a man a fire and keep him warm for a night
Set a man on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.
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never "got" the higher labels
i tried them and found them lacking
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never "got" the higher labels
i tried them and found them lacking
The more expensive the product, the better it is, right? So let's stagger our products that are nearly indistinguishable from one another except for a fancy colored label across a wide price range, just so some people can have the satisfaction of getting drunk off of $300 a bottle whiskey. The proceeds can go towards massive advertising campaigns to let more people know they too can enjoy the wonderful experience of ridiculously overpriced alcohol.
Case in point, I've been to more than one vendor conference
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Black red green and blue... lined up in a blind taste test I doubt anyone could tell the difference.
But the elite do enjoy lighting their cigars with franklins, I get it.
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Not a fan - mine was too loud.
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and I'm perfectly happy
Too bad instead of Black Label it'll be Blue Screen or Red Ring.
Swedish/Finnish Blended Whiskey (Score:4, Funny)
A Swedish/Finnish blended Whiskey, eh? I guess an AI couldn't make it any worse.
But now Microsoft has teamed up...
Oh dear god, no. "Hi, I'm Tippy! It looks like your trying to make a blended whiskey palatable enough to get drunk. Maybe I can help."
Re: Swedish/Finnish Blended Whiskey (Score:2)
Someone is confused... (Score:1)
No, I said "dram", not DRAM...
But there's Chinese components? (Score:2)
Re: But there's Chinese components? (Score:1)
Sounds gimmicky (Score:2)
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Nah, an AI designed towel would probably end up being something like a rhombus because it ends up being more efficient is some obscure way people don't understand but also won't notice in practice.
That manufacturing a rhomboidal towel requires new tooling will drive the price way up, and almost nobody buys the towels because they're twice as expensive as a normal one but not noticeably better. Then in a decade as the conventional towel companies replace their tooling they replace it with rhomboidal machine
"Perfect" is a misnomer (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no such thing. There is an immense spectrum of whisk[e]y flavors, and often people will gravitate toward one part of the spectrum and not particularly care for the others.
At the end of the day, I think this will be viewed as a marketing curiosity that may appeal to a subset of people (just like an interesting/quirky creation story might cause some people to gravitate toward a particular human distiller).
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Interesting. I know nothing really of whiskey distilling so humour me whilst I make these examples up. What if customers overwhelmingly prefer whiskey distilled in an oak barrel, but do so only because peat x reacts well with oak but doesn't react well with...err...sandalwood? The stats would show oak barrel as significant
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I think Microsoft is shooting for making a whiskey that can help their employees do something useful.
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I think it would be more interesting if it were applied to a particular type of whiskey with the intention of maximizing whatever characteristics the people who like that type of whiskey consider most important. Oth
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Personally, I prefer Bushmills or Jameson, but I do prefer them neat.
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And then there is the fact that no one would have Islay for breakfast, that is what Speyside if for, but it does goes well after dinner.
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Maybe that is the reason to "generate a dataset of more than 70 million recipes that a robot predicts will be popular". Hell, give me 70 million guesses at ANYTHING, and I guarantee you a high rate of success.
Seriously, how does that statement not completely invalidate anything else they have to say. This isn't an answer. This is a complete matrix of every possible answer.
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There is an immense spectrum of whisk[e]y flavors, and often people will gravitate toward one part of the spectrum and not particularly care for the others.
If this was true, there wouldn't be blended whiskeys.
What they're doing is trying to use AI to find the "perfect" blend, which will appeal to the maximum number of blended whiskey drinkers. No, it won't appeal to most single malt drinkers, but that's not the audience.
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If this was true, there wouldn't be blended whiskeys.
Blended whisky is a lot less expensive to produce (being cut with significant amounts of low-grade grain whisky that would be undrinkable on its own but serves as a tolerable filler) and thus fills a price point for people who care more about quantity than quality. Rare is the person who honestly prefers that sort of muddled flavor to the uncut stuff.
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^ 1st post by said AI after drinking a gallon of the whisky it made.
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On might like a very strong taste; other might not, so you end up in the middle.
A single malt does not try to please every tatebud. It tries to please the people who like that specific direction of taste.
I kind of think that's what they mean by superiority, though. If you're looking for a perfect whiskey for you, you should look to single malts. If you're looking for the perfect whiskey to share then you're probably going to settle on a blended.
That doesn't mean that some people might find a blended whiskey superior to some, many, or all single malts. It only means that most people are more likely to find their perfect whiskey in the selection of single malts rather than blends.
Formulaic often crap ... (Score:1)
Generally, I find products made from algorithm to appeal to the masses results in crap ... movies, music, and probably TV seem to be generated to hit the current high points, but otherwise create boring soul-less shit which just tries to follow other things which didn't suck.
Also, what you call whiskey depends on where you come from ... y
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Generally, I find products made from algorithm to appeal to the masses results in crap ... movies, music, and probably TV seem to be generated to hit the current high points, but otherwise create boring soul-less shit which just tries to follow other things which didn't suck.
Also, what you call whiskey depends on where you come from ... your Scotch and Irish whiskey's are based on malt (though Irish allows for other grains) ... your Canadian whiskey is based on Rye ... your America whiskey is mostly based on corn, and that splits into Bourbons (Kentucky) and your things like Jack Daniels (Tennessee) (yes, there are differences between them).
There's a lot of different aspects in the taste of a whisky, and quite frankly, I personally would steer clear of one made by algorithm ... at that point, it's the McDonald's of whisky and what's the point?
Whisky algorithmically generated by Microsoft? No thanks.
At the end of the day, whomever or whatever makes the drink, it will be humans consuming and judging it. Either they'll like it, or they won't. It's that simple. Call it blasphemous all you want. Consumers won't know or even care how it was made when you slap some bullshit Grandpa Joe's Old Family Recipe story on the label.
There are dozens of bourbons, all with their own "story", and all being sold out of only a handful of distilleries. 90% of the stories are bullshit and consumers don't care. They ca
Makes sense when you think about it... (Score:5, Funny)
...getting your customers shitfaced on eBourbon sounds like the marketing solution to Windows 10.
Helps you forget all those times Uncle Telemetry touched you there...
AI-Generated? (Score:3)
If it's not 3D printed, I'm not touching it.
But will it get me shit-faced? (Score:1)
If it gets me to oblivion quickly, I'm all for it.
Being Microsoft, though, it will probably take telemetry data about my binge drinking and post it on Facebook. Or it will force me to update my whiskey while I am trying to get drunk. And it will stop me from drinking other incompatible whiskies.
I bet it tastes like Tasty Wheat (Score:2)
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Do you think that's really whiskey you're drinking?
Only one repsonse to this (Score:2)
The premise is all wrong. (Score:2)
"Popular" and "best" are adjectives that seldom apply to the same thing.
AI is Digital Slight of Hand (Score:2)
I'm getting sick and tired of everything being called, "AI". No, your slightly better coded algorithm figured shit out and made some Brandy which your owners will over price like that nasty fake meat and robot coffee dispenser (which by the way has been around since the 70s with the cup.)
Oh and while we're at it, Impossible Meat is nothing more than Vegan Spam. There I said it.
" the company behind the AI algorithm" (Score:2)
Bollocks. None of this is original to the company - they're applying bog standard machine learning models, which are actually not algorithms either.
"It is not only faster than a person carrying out the process manually, but the algorithm’s ability to sift through and calculate a large amount of data means new and innovative combinations can be found."
The "new and innovative combinations" are not inspired in any way, they're transductive, meaning that they'
Like fine art (Score:2)
Are the most expensive pieces of art the "best", or are they just both rare and good enough?
You can buy life size prints of the Mona Lisa, but I have yet to see anyone have hanging in their home (I am sure there are exceptions). The myth and lore have exceeded the artistic value but a 1000x or more at this point.
Fine whiskey beyond a certain price point is more about a pissing contest among the rich. If an indistinguishable clone of the most expensive stuff was synthesized in a lab and mass produced it wo
Mass delusions and hysteria (Score:2)
Are the most expensive pieces of art the "best", or are they just both rare and good enough?
No they are not always the "best" even if we could agree on what best means. The Mona Lisa wasn't even particularly well known until after it was stolen back around 1911. It became a big news story which then made the piece famous and thus valuable. Before 1911 it was barely known among the general public. Since then it has gained a popularity that really has little relationship to the artistic merit of the piece.
Fine whiskey beyond a certain price point is more about a pissing contest among the rich.
No different than art. Once a bottle exceeds any rational tether to the value of the conte
Blasphemy. (Score:2)
You buy the perfect whisky, but then... (Score:1)
It's upgraded while in storage into something that is completely undrinkable. Microsoft touts this as a feature, and tells you to pack sand.
A drink almost but not entirely unlike... (Score:2)
Rich asshats competing (Score:2)
One of the world's most expensive single-malts, a Macallan 1946, sold at an auction for a $460,000, while a Chivas Regal Royal Salute blend, which was created in 2002 to celebrate the golden jubilee of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, has sold for $10,000 a bottle.
Anyone that pays that kind of money for a bunch of booze is a first class moron. A bottle of booze that old is something nobody will ever drink - turning it effectively into a piece of ersatz artwork. It's nothing but a mcguffin for rich twats trying to show or grow their bank account larger than the next jackass.
And no I don't have a problem with people buying overpriced luxury goods. It is only a problem when it becomes a tulip mania [wikipedia.org] between people who have lost all sense of proportion and rationality.
Unless it is a Green Tea mix shot(Jamison) (Score:2)
This doesn't even help (Score:2)
The summary claims that the AI was used to "generate a dataset of more than 70 million recipes that a robot predicts will be popular"
How is that useful to anyone? That's not 70, which leads to the possibility of someone mixing them and taste testing them. It's 70,000,000, which means making random mixtures of every known brand would be just as effective as a search algorithm. If the summary is to be believed, this "invention" or "discovery" or whatever else you want to call it, is a joke.
Wait! It's from
Fuck alcohol (Score:2)
Best $10,000 I ever drank! (Score:1)
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Free Zune with every bottle? (Score:1)