In 1960, the adage led the modern housewife to believe that to conquer the heart of her man, you had to go through his stomach. Times have changed and for the better, but perhaps not in the direction we thought. Because in 2023, the strategy remains the same. It is now robots that apply it.
To date, robots have failed to take over automobiles. Nobody would like to go under the knife of a robot-surgeon. And investors shun robo-advisors! Perhaps playing a last-ditch card, the robots will attempt a seduction operation in the kitchen this year.
Because the robot vacuum cleaners – which until now were the ultimate in the domestic robot – have made children. At the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, fridges, washer-dryers and, yes, dishwashers are pretty much all connected and automated.
And they have an eye on your kitchen!
A chef in his kitchen
Today, we can affirm in all seriousness that washing the dishes at midnight is not only possible, but that it would be stupid not to do so. Tomorrow’s appliances are equipped with an artificial intelligence (AI) that already calculates the optimal time of day or night to activate them.
Energy saving and better health are on the program of the robotic kitchen of tomorrow.
In its line of Bespoke home appliances, Korean giant Samsung includes more than its fair share of AI to automate more than one household task. Its Bespoke AI Oven oven not only knows what dish you are preparing, it can correct your recipe if you pretend to miss its cooking. Paired with your phone, the oven knows if you have done any sporting activity in recent days and can suggest meals with a substantial calorific content.
No baked potatoes for couch potatoes, so to speak…
Bespoke steak
On the other hand, steak. As many as you want. But fear not: no animal was mistreated to end up on your plate. Because the end of the end in food technologies, foodtechs as they are known in the jargon, has not changed despite the discount of flagship companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Beyond Meat is currently worth 80% less than when it went public and 95% less than its peak at the end of 2019.
Impossible Foods is a private company whose value would vary between 4 and 7 billion $US. It is still not profitable despite a sustained increase in sales each year.
Precisely, this ever-increasing demand for synthetic meats continues to stimulate innovation. The new trend in 2023? Steaks “printed” at home, on demand, by a robot cook of the future. Because, yes, 3D printing wants to enter the kitchen over the next few years.
A series of young Israeli shoots present themselves as pioneers in this field. Companies called SuperMeat and Redefine Meat offer machines that print, one thin layer at a time, a very realistic piece of synthetic meat. It’s all there: the texture of the flesh, the softer, more runny fat, and the blood.
The ingredients: soy and legumes, coconut and sunflower oil. The result: a medium-rare tenderloin without any animal trace! Get ready to see the first samples in trendy restaurants across North America in early 2024.
Pout, pout, pout…
The robots replace the chef and the grocer. They also have the delivery man in their sights.
After a few years on the back burner, the self-driving car emerges from the shadows in 2023. The fault lies with the equipment manufacturers – those manufacturers that the public rarely hears about, but who design almost all of the vehicle components adorned with the logos of the major manufacturers. : Bosch, Continental, Magna, ZF… Add to that the electronic giants Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm and you have all the suppliers necessary to launch your own brand of electric and autonomous vehicles.
All these multinationals have something new this year, so that the fully autonomous car is a little closer to reality, summer and winter alike.
However, it is robots on four wheels of a completely different kind that are attracting attention at the start of 2023. The American company Ottonomy put into service just before the holidays its first autonomous meal delivery vehicles in a few airports, including those of Pittsburgh and Rome. Travelers waiting for a flight can order their meal by phone, without leaving their boarding gate. An Ottonomy robot will deliver their meal to them as soon as it is ready. Early customers get a free drink, to encourage adoption of the technology.
This is only a first step for delivery robots. After the airports, the shopping centers, and why not downright the great restaurants.
Your stomach doesn’t know what awaits it in 2023. But a robot somewhere thinks it knows better than you.