Taste Engine

We interrupt your regularly scheduled newsletter for this special edition.

So, What's a Hackathon?

So I was stumbling around the internet like I usually am, looking at AI stuff, when I came across a hackathon from this group called lablab.ai. You might be asking yourself, what is a hackathon? What are you hacking exactly? The answer — nothing — usually you are creating something new. And what is an a-thon? I think we all know that part is basically an event. So if we want to break it down, a hackathon is an event where you create something new. These events are usually based around tech and software, but they can be for prototyping or business concepts, etc.

And for the sake of this newsletter and all of our subscribers and family and friends who keep asking “what do you really do with AI?” events like this can serve as an example. And if you’ve been reading since the beginning, you know that the time for “exploration” is now.

What Did You Build?

Good question. OK, so here’s the setup for the event: it was to use data scraped from the internet using a tool called “Bright Data” to create a product with an enterprise application. For my project, I chose the “go-to-market” track, and of course, you need to build with AI and incorporate AI into your build. The product I built was called “Taste Engine” and its purpose is to allow fast-casual eateries (sometimes referred to as “slop bowl” providers such as Chipotle, CAVA, and Sweetgreen) to design dishes and limited-time offerings around hyper-localized food trends. For example, when Chipotle currently rolls out a limited-time ingredient like brisket, they are testing in some key markets for success, and then they roll it out nationally. This is an old model; it works, but it’s not the greatest fit for all markets. The way we consume news and social media has already made this switch from serving up everything to everyone to our current algorithmic news where you are served up articles that match your interests. It’s personalization of taste and preferences that could potentially make the jump into fast-casual eateries.

Three Neighborhoods, Three Tastes

For my project I picked 3 neighborhoods and each of them showed very specific and very different flavor trends. These neighborhoods are: Williamsburg, NY, West Hollywood, Los Angeles and The Mission District in San Francisco. The outcome was very different food trends in all three all signaling different flavors that were gaining in popularity.

Taste Engine reading the flavor signals in Williamsburg, NY.

See It For Yourself

If you’d like to learn more about what I built, I submitted a 5-minute video along with my entry.

I’m also hosting the project on Wundervault for a limited time → tasteengine.wundervault.com

That’s all for this week because I’m exhausted from this project and don’t want to stare at my computer anymore.

One last thing, I think I need to issue a correction on our last issue based on feedback from one our readers. Although I do want AI to give me time back, it will most likely not be the case. It wasn’t the case this week, that’s for sure.

Until next week, thank you, readers; send your AI questions if you got ‘em!

Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down “Stupid things!” On their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell “stupid” and that he had to ask his neighbor to tell him. “A nice muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!” thought Alice.
— Alice in Wonderland