The future of bartending may be revolutionized by artificial intelligence (AI) as an expert foresees a day when customers' orders at bars could be taken by AI systems, even recognizing regular patrons.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MARCH 22: A robot bartender makes a cocktail during the 2022 Bar & Restaurant Expo and World Tea Conference + Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center on March 22, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
AI at the Bar
According to Fox News, Glenn Tait, the product director of Zonal, a UK-based hospitality tech firm, highlighted six significant ways AI will shape the food and hospitality industry.
While the adoption of AI in the hospitality sector is progressing slowly, he noted that its potential to streamline work and enhance customer experiences is undeniable. Tait emphasized AI's efficiency in analyzing data at lightning speed, which would usually take humans days to accomplish.
Despite lingering skepticism and fears of a "Terminator-style" takeover, Tait noted that "Al is already a fundamental part of our everyday lives," from facial recognition technology to fully automated vehicles.
AI is poised to revolutionize the industry across six crucial areas: automating restaurant bookings and responses, enhancing stock management, advancing forward planning, providing hyper-personalized customer experiences, enabling predictive maintenance, and incorporating facial recognition technology.
"Such technology could be used to offer regular customers something personal, such as 'a glass of the usual' or their favorite spot by the window," he told the Daily Star.
"We could also see AI being used to understand how a customer is feeling, if they look unhappy or they have been waiting too long for their main meal, technology could prompt a staff visit to the table."
The ChattyChef
However, it is important to note that AI's role extends beyond just culinary domains. In a related development, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Computing have made significant strides in creating an AI chef, using natural language processing models to assist users in cooking recipes.
The ChattyChef dataset, powered by the large language model GPT-J, engages in cooking dialogues with users, ensuring recipes are followed correctly. Unlike previous attempts, this AI chef understands user intent and precisely tracks recipe conversations.
Through user intent detection, ChattyChef identifies the user's current goal, such as requesting the next instruction or seeking ingredient details. Instruction state tracking accurately follows the recipe conversation, ensuring the most suitable responses are generated for user queries.
This innovation significantly improves response generation, enabling ChattyChef to provide relevant instructions without overwhelming users. The dataset is built using WikiHow recipes with positive ratings and less than eight steps, making it an efficient and practical AI cooking companion.
As AI continues to push the boundaries of technological advancements, its potential applications in various industries, including bartending and cooking, become increasingly evident. Time will tell if AI will soon take our orders at the bar or restaurant as it continues to advance.
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