Government Builds Robot to Judge Thai Food

People take their national foods seriously, that’s a given. So when someone is producing sub-par dishes and calling them authentic, it ruins things for everyone else. The prime minister of Thailand is especially tired of restaurants cooking up crappy Thai food, so she had a robot created to solve the problem. Yeah.

According to the NY Times, the Thai Delicious Committee is a group focused on ensuring that Thai cuisine meets high-quality expectations. The committee appointed a robotic judge to deem what is worthy of being called Thai food. The machine utilizes a series of sensors to emulate the chemical signatures of Thai dishes. It then compares the results with a government database of what is considered a “good dish” and projects a score out of 100. If a dish falls below a score of 80 points, it’s legally considered bad Thai food.

The plan is have one of these machines in each of the Thai embassies throughout the world. Each unit is valued at $18,000, and the machines will judge selected restaurants within the areas where they’re stationed. While the science behind it seems pretty solid, some are wary of the robot judge. They feel humans would be better suited to gauge authenticity rather than machines.

Robots can’t taste the love of home cooking. If they could understand love, we’d have a bigger problem than just shitty food.

H/T NY Times