Brewing with Artificial Intelligence
I used ChatGPT to design a brew day recipe.
If you’ve spent some time on social media over the last few weeks, and if your algorithm has identified you as a nerd, you’ve probably heard of ChatGPT by Open AI. From their website:
"We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response.”
The website has been widely accepted as one of the most developed open source AI interfaces. It is simple to use and solves difficult problems. This technology can correct pages of sophisticated codes, solve complex math equations, deliver thought provoking writings, and maybe even solve world hunger (?). With this limitless technology at my fingertips…I’ve decided to brew beer with it.
Screenshots of the chat are below. The more detailed you are with the prompt, the more detailed of a response you will get.
Dumb robot…that name pun STINKS. I’ll stick with my own naming convention for the beer, but I will follow the rest of this as strict as I can. I crossed the responses with a Northern Brewer instruction sheet to see if anything major was left out. While the bulk of the ingredients and instructions were there, ChatGPT excluded a target OG and ABV. I asked both follow up questions and was quickly provided a detailed explanation. After that, I went over to Norther Brewer to place the order:
The only thing missing (according to the AI), was some coffee beans. If you follow the account, you know the coffee that will be used for brew day:
Dript and Brookmeade Brewing. It wouldn’t be AI without a good crossover (boom).
Full disclosure, the last time I made a coffee stout, the coffee was awesome… but I ruined the batch. I was slightly embarrassed to share the brew. So we are due for a good redemption story.
Brew day is scheduled for Saturday, January 7th. Stay Tuned! I will post a few more updates on this beer as I go. Yes ChatGPT is a cool tool but in my opinion it ruins a lot of the fun of homebrewing; the creativity combined with the trial and error. So even if it is good, I can’t say I’ll use it as a go to advisor for brew days. If AI is scheduled to take over the world eventually, the creative process could be our last stand.
It was a bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
