AI CHATBOT’S IDEA OF A GREAT BEER WON’T FLY IN SAN DIEGO
Human brewers fretting about advances in artificial intelligence can relax — their jobs are safe. For now.
Recently, I contacted ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot software that is taking the Internet by storm. My request: “please create the recipe for the world’s greatest beer.”
The response was swift, arriving in less than 10 seconds. It was also, in the eyes of several San Diego brewers, more artificial than intelligent.
“This is a very basic recipe,” commented Zack Kaplan, Original 40’s head brewer.
Paul Segura, Karl Strauss’ brewmaster, wrote in an email that “this generic recipe would yield a somewhat generic beer. Being from San Diego, I think people like and you and I would probably drink this and say ‘blah,’ Give me an IPA!!”
ChatGPT’s recipe called for eight pounds of malted barley, one pound of caramel malt, one ounce of Cascade hops, one ounce of Hallertau hops, one packet of ale yeast and five gallons of water.
The chatbot’s reply included nine steps of brewing instructions and a disclaimer: “As an AI language model, I don’t have personal preferences, but I can suggest a recipe for beer that is generally considered to be well-balanced and flavorful.”
Not good enough, Segura argued, as the chatbot failed to specify the type of caramel malt or ale yeast to be used — there are, especially among yeasts, scads of choices — or “the original gravity of the wort before fermentation.”
Don’t ask me to explain that last bit of brewer-speak — it’s way above my pay grade. But, hey, I’m not an all-knowing chatbot. Brewers, it seems, are in no immediate danger of being replaced by a disembodied super program.
“Not until they can lift 50-pound bags of malt,” Kaplan said.