Are AI Equipment Reviews on the Horizon?


Researchers have created an AI program that generates reviews of wines and beers that are indistinguishable from human written reviews.  Here's a link to the story on the Scientific American website.  The program does not taste the beverage it just writes a review.

Here's a key paragraph from the article:

Theoretically, the algorithm could have produced reviews about anything. A couple of key features made beer and wine particularly interesting to the researchers, though. For one thing, “it was just a very unique data set,” says computer engineer Keith Carlson of Dartmouth College, who co-developed the algorithm used in the study. Wine and beer reviews also make a great template for AI-generated text, he explains, because their descriptions contain a lot of specific variables, such as growing region, grape or wheat variety, fermentation style and year of production. Also, these reviews tend to rely on a limited vocabulary. “People talk about wine in the same way, using the same set of words,” Carlson says. For example, connoisseurs might routinely toss around adjectives such as “oaky,” “floral” or “dry.”

Obviously, this program with a few changes could generated audio equipment reviews.  Will audiophiles even notice?

Put on your sunglasses, the future really is that bright!

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I've been under the impression that we've been debating with slew of AI bots already.

When a computer gets ears and a brain, I will read an AI audio review.  Until then I will trust my ears and to a lesser degree selected ears of others.

@artemus_5, I think you miss the point.  The AI program writes a fictional review that can fool real readers into thinking it was written by a human. The fact that it is written about wine/beer is besides the point and the AI could just as easily generate a "review" about audio equipment.  The review would use all the audiophile buzzwords and descriptors.  it would read just like a real review, but it's not.

Taken to extremes the AI doesn't even have to review a real product.  It could be a virtual component somewhere in the metaverse.

ASR serves all of us by doing a lot of geeky stuff with even more expensive equipment and then giving us the results. Who wouldn't want their output? I say leave it at that and go your own way. It's all just a tiny part of the evolving divide that started in the West with Greek Apollonians v Dionysians. It's basic! Don't fight it! Fight for clean electricity!

I have the impression that many of the "reviews" of unknown products on Amazon have been written by robots already.

@artemus_5 - I think ASR is OK if you take it for what it is -- a site that measures gear to quantify objective performance. I’d like to know where manufacturers are falling down or succeeding in basic engineering. Yes, the people who think measurements tell all are missing a lot in some cases. But as I see it, that doesn’t negate the value of measurements of standard specifications.

The program does not taste the beverage it just writes a review.

Isn’t that about what the measurebators on ASR do now? A machine listens for them and then they align their likes and dislikes according to a set or measurements which they believe is correct. Kinda misses the whole point of music reproduction. But it makes them feel superior. I’m sure the inventors of said AI are patting themselves on the back for creating their new marvel of uselessness

In the past 25 or so years, I have come to believe that mankind is not really advancing at all. We spent 100’s or 1000’s of years longing to be able to actually speak to someone over long distances. Then in the early 20th century, we got just such a thing. Most were happy for 80-90 maybe even 100 yrs. Then we reverted back to the caveman practice of scrawling messages on a cave wall, only our cave is a small phone with a keyboard too dam** small for a grown ups fingers. Yet millions today now have carpel tunnel and other hand and wrist injuries because we no longer use the more modern talk mode which is the actual main purpose of the phone. Oh, but we brag on how far we have come. Really? We even have a judge in very high places who doesn’t even know what a woman is. And on and on it goes. The woman has an advanced degree and does not know what a woman is? If this is advancement, I hope I am never part of it. End of rant

All reviews have one thing wrong with them It's not you doing it only you know what you like