I swear to God, if y’all AI Anthony Bourdain...

Important reminder: Robots cannot eat. | Getty

I am so tired of hearing about artificial intelligence that I could just about die. Over the past couple of months, we’ve been inundated with stories about what AI can and cannot do, specifically as it relates to the future of workers in industries like tech, fast food, and, ahem, journalism. The cumulative effect of this constant preoccupation with AI is a heavy shroud of existential dread looming over the entire internet as we all sit and wait for the robots to take our jobs. And then, the Washington Post managed to find a way to make it all feel even worse.

This week, reporters from the newspaper used a new tool from online learning platform Khan Academy that allows students to “have conversations” with famous figures from history; in this case, they used it to “interview” Harriet Tubman. They asked “her” about everything from her heroic work in helping enslaved people to freedom to her favorite song and her thoughts on critical race theory, a legal framework that didn’t really exist until 60ish years after she died in 1913. The tool coughed up inaccurate information about Tubman’s work and dodged the political stuff, ultimately resulting in a piece that is neither interesting nor illuminating.

But it did get me thinking about how AI enthusiasts might try to replicate this experience in the world of food. Recipe websites and chefs are already thinking about how they can tinker with AI.

If things keep going as they are, I can imagine a near future in which you can just chat with the long-dead Julia Child about the best way to make sauce bordelaise, or bug the late Anthony Bourdain about his favorite cebicherias in Lima. It’s a bit of a tempting prospect, the idea of accessing those wealths of wisdom and insight that are no longer with us. Who wouldn’t want to hear Bourdain wax poetic about a late-night Tokyo noodle spot one more time? Why wouldn’t I want to hear Child’s distinctly comforting laugh as she walks me through making a dish?

I’ll tell you why: Because it’s not real. The whole reason we loved someone like Anthony Bourdain is because of his authenticity, his distinct humanness that let us know we could trust him. Audiences fell in love with Julia Child not because she was technically the best French chef, but because she made us feel like we too could make beef bourguignon. No matter how much it learns by stealing the work of actual humans without giving them credit or recompense, AI fundamentally cannot understand food in the way that flesh-and-blood humans can. Robots, after all, cannot eat.

And we are fortunate to have lived in the era of celebrity chefs, at least in this sense, because there are still so many ways that we can learn and take inspiration from these towering culinary figures. They left us thousands of pages of writing to read and countless hours of television to watch, veritable gold mines of their knowledge for us to learn from forever. Not to sound like the crustiest old broad alive, but if you’re dying to talk to Anthony or Julia or the late Marcella Hazan or Auguste Escoffier himself, pick up a damn book! —Amy McCarthy, staff writer

Related reading:

Right now, executives in the fast-food industry are looking to AI to replace everyone from dishwashers to workers that make guacamole at Chipotle.
My brilliant colleague Jaya Saxena on why AI recipes are terrible and suck.
AI is one of the biggest issues in the ongoing writers and actors strikes. Read more about why actors and writers are so concerned about AI’s role in their industry.
According to the New York Times, Google has already held a demonstration of an AI tool capable of writing news stories for executives from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and News Corp, which owns the Wall Street Journal. For better or worse, AI might be here ASAP.