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 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.

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!

@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.

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.

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