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AI Software Technology

Machine Learning Is Making Pesto Even More Delicious (technologyreview.com) 79

Posted by BeauHD from the benefits-of-artificial-intelligence dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Machine learning has been used to create basil plants that are extra-delicious. While we sadly cannot report firsthand on the herb's taste, the effort reflects a broader trend that involves using data science and machine learning to improve agriculture. The researchers behind the AI-optimized basil used machine learning to determine the growing conditions that would maximize the concentration of the volatile compounds responsible for basil's flavor. The study appears in the journal PLOS One today.

The basil was grown in hydroponic units within modified shipping containers in Middleton, Massachusetts. Temperature, light, humidity, and other environmental factors inside the containers could be controlled automatically. The researchers tested the taste of the plants by looking for certain compounds using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. And they fed the resulting data into machine-learning algorithms developed at MIT and a company called Cognizant. The research showed, counterintuitively, that exposing plants to light 24 hours a day generated the best taste. The research group plans to study how the technology might improve the disease-fighting capabilities of plants as well as how different flora may respond to the effects of climate change.
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Machine Learning Is Making Pesto Even More Delicious More

Machine Learning Is Making Pesto Even More Delicious

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  • Machine Learning (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Can it grow romaine lettuce without the E.coli?

  • sustainable? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Okay so to "revolutionize farming" what percent of crops need to be grown indoors under artificial light and what is the financial and environmental cost of that? I support progress and things like geothermal greenhouses if they reduce energy used in shipping. If you put a greenhouse partially in ground and use an air intake buried underground you can grow things that would be otherwise shipped in. Even if you supplement the lighting a bit that might be a win but I don't see how this revolutionizes agricu

    • If you've got a completely controlled environment, herbicide and pesticide become unnecessary, which would be an immense change. If you're also using other techniques to maximize the yield, nutrition, or other properties while doing that you can probably cut down on waste as well. There are some crops where some of it's left unharvested or just tossed if it doesn't meet some quality characteristics. Being able to localize food production is also something that's fairly important and helps provide jobs in th

      • Now there is a lot of interesting things here, for academia and research.
        But for long term real world usage you will eventually erode the soil, since there isn't a really really big ecosystem supporting it. So then you break the cycle to get more fertile soil. What is useful information will be how soil behaves in a closed system, and what data you can gather that will end up having useful real world applications.

        But there is also another use for this: A lot of food is tasteless when you accelerate its grow

    • This will work in those super towers they'll build in the future where people live and work and do everything inside a building they never leave.

      • It is a bit hard to stay alive if you leave the bubble. Are you sure you didn't just sneak in this morning? Wait right here while I have security scan your ID implant.

    • The "revolutionary" aspect is that they did a farming experiment where they tried to maximize taste.

      Normally farming experiments only try to maximize yield, durability, and resistance to toxins.

  • Basil (Score:3)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Thursday April 04, 2019 @12:58AM (#58382188)
    All the basil plants I ever buy end up dying. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

    • Start with rosemary, much easier to keep alive (plenty of sun, let it dry before watering). Then try thyme and oregano.

      • Rosemary is not easier, unless you have very specific environmental conditions where you live. Ie. hot and dry mostly. Rosemary hates getting it's roots wet and will die quickly that way. Which applies to most temperate areas.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      Are they getting enough sun and water? Is the climate suitable? I found that on the north coast of NSW (high humidity, hot summers, mild winters, no frosts, high rainfall) I could grow basil effortlessly. The plants thrived and grew huge with minimal care. However in Melbourne (less humidity, less rainfall, colder winters, occasional frosts) the basil plants wouldn't grow anywhere near as big and required a lot of care or they'd die.

  • Tastes better? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04, 2019 @01:23AM (#58382226)

    I saw nothing in the links that showed the plants were *tasted* to see if they were better. Taste is a blend and highly subjective. Run those plants by some professional chefs so we can read their responses.

    • They should have just said tastes "stronger." It would be less false, less controversial, and not all that compelling either.

  • Gee, I never realized that AGW was the opposite of machine learning (ML). Everything bad that happens is blamed on AGW, whether or not it makes any sense. Meanwhile, anything good can be made better with ML.

    Burned your hamburger on the grill? Darn that AGW! Enjoyed a good beer with your burnt hamburger? Imagine how much better that beer would taste with a little ML.

    Stupid hype is stupid, news at 11:00.

    • Everything bad that happens is blamed on AGW, whether or not it makes any sense.

      Oh, great. Thanks Obama!

      (/s)

  • Strange tasting process (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sad_ ( 7868 ) on Thursday April 04, 2019 @06:52AM (#58382668) Homepage

    "The researchers tested the taste of the plants by looking for certain compounds using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry."

    instead of really tasting it? it only should taste better theoretically, there aren't any real taste test results that confirm the actual taste is actually better (even though, this is a very subjective thing).

    • "The researchers tested the taste of the plants by looking for certain compounds using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry."

      instead of really tasting it? it only should taste better theoretically, there aren't any real taste test results that confirm the actual taste is actually better (even though, this is a very subjective thing).

      Yeah, looks like we have some bullshit going on here. Just because there is more of a compound that has been determined to taste good doesn't mean that it wouldn't be overbearing in larger amounts, or a different ratio to other compounds.

      Taste is subjective, but we gotta admit that someone has to taste something to tell what the taste is.

      Here's a cooking tip:

      If you are wilting cilantro in a saucepan, add a little coconut oil to it. This makes it easier to scrape that crap into the trashcan.

      This a

    • Think about that for a minute. Machine learning requires a tremendous number of iterations, with only very small changes between each one. You could do this with human tasters, but in order to measure those small changes accurately you would need a huge number of tasters and plants in order to get your error down to something reasonable.

      By first identifying which chemicals tasters want, and then measure those through far more precise means, you can go through those iterations much faster and more efficie
  • Soon the pesto will rise up and takes over.
  • We needed a special research team and all that computer equipment to tell us what gardeners have known for DECADES? CENTURIES?

    When I buy a potted basil plant, there is a tag encouraging plenty of light. Gardening books spell out the care and feeding of all kinds of plants.

    Seriously, ALL THAT MONEY AND TIME was spent to do nothing more than reaffirm what we already know. Great big DUH!

  • Genetic selection with reanimation, rather than just growing conditions, should be worked on as well. Once a plant is sitting on your dinner plate its evolutionary future is very bleak. That plant, no matter how wonderful it tastes to you, is simply an instance in history. A one-off thing of the past. If however, the genomic material could be sampled, saved, and reanimated in the form of a seedling, then the food industry could transform itself from serving the current tasteless cardboard, where every plant

  • First, every semi-automatic gun = machine gun.
    Then every r/c aircraft = drone.
    Then everyone claims AI systems when in fact they're just bog-standard (albeit-complex) if-then trees.

    Regarding the OP: just crunching data is NOT "machine learning".
    (RTFA and even they shorthand 'machine learning' into AI which it truly, truly isn't. Not even CLOSE.) This article fails to explain in any way how this experiment actually uses 'machine learning'. As far as I can tell, it's merely a broadly automated testing syste

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