FLORIAN PINEL: When we talk about AI at IBM,
we mean augmented intelligence, not artificial intelligence,
because our goal is really to enhance and scale human skills.
Watson evolved from being a supercomputer to becoming
a collection of services that are
available on the cloud to everyone.
And we thought, well, one thing that's still missing to Watson
is creativity.
Could Watson help its users be more creative?
MING TSAI: I'm jaded.
I'm biased, so me, with pickles, these
are my five favorite ways to do pickles.
I'm probably going to go to those.
Watson, He's not jaded, he's not biased.
I never thought about doing a pickle souffle.
I wouldn't, but I never thought about it.
FLORIAN PINEL: Chef Watson has some knowledge that we
don't have -- you, I, or even a professional chef.
It knows what flavor compounds are
contained in what ingredients.
He knows the chemistry of the ingredients.
He also has, of course, watched thousands of recipes,
so it's seen what ingredients are often used together.
He tries to combine those two sources of information
to make its recommendations.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: I tend to cook with the same ingredients
all the time, so it should be an adventure
to try something totally new.
MING TSAI: I always coach young chefs, and they create a dish,
and there's look, this has never been done before!
Peanut butter escargot!
Just because it's never been done before,
doesn't mean it's genius.
As a matter of fact, peanut butter escargot
would be horrible.
However, where I think Watson could
be hugely beneficial is discovering
new ingredients, finding a 30th peppercorn I didn't know about.
But ultimately, I think it stops there.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: We asked our Twitter followers
to take a poll.
In a very close race, they picked green olives
ahead of dried cranberries.
I was rooting for dried cranberries,
but I will try my hand at olives.
FLORIAN PINEL: Immediately you see suggestions of ingredients
are going to go well with green olives.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Oh, goodness.
FLORIAN PINEL: You can exclude ingredients
if you think that dry vermouth is not a good idea with fish.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Oh, that's a bad idea, just in general.
MING TSAI: I want to do salmon.
So Watson's first idea, which seems incredibly horrific,
is a beef and salmon dish with green olive, mushroom, butter,
pimento, chili dharwad, guajilo pepper.
Ugh!
GRETCHEN GAVETT: What is happening here?
Green olives, bleu cheese, mint chocolate chip ice cream,
and shallots?
MING TSAI: What else works with it?
Blueberry?
No.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: I feel like tuna's leading me down a road
I don't want to go down.
FLORIAN PINEL: OK.
That's the thing with computers.
Once they decide that something works well,
they're going to recommend to you a lot.
MING TSAI: Watercress.
OK, Watson, what do we got, baby?
Salmon tabbouleh looks OK.
So Watson is taking a shrimp recipe
and swapped out the seafood.
So that's some AI going on.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: And so it changes the portions
and measurements.
FLORIAN PINEL: Yeah, the proportions and the steps,
so that you don't have to do that yourself.
MING TSAI: Eugh, cottage cheese, Watson!
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Oh, that could be good.
We picked our recipe.
It is a green olive and grits dish.
MING TSAI: Good recipe.
I'm impressed that it said, OK, well since there isn't a salmon
tabbouleh recipe, I'm going to take a shrimp tabbouleh recipe
and replace is with salmon.
That's smart.
It's not genius.
FLORIAN PINEL: I would probably start
by prepping the vegetables.
And for most of them it just says chopped,
so it's kind of up to you, really.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: OK.
I don't know if this chopping or not.
They're smaller than they once were.
MING TSAI: All right, Watson, so I tweaked your recipe.
I'm not a big fan of cheese with seafood, so I 86ed the cheese.
You also didn't have an allium group in your recipe, which
is a no no.
Garlic, shallot, onion, leek, scallions.
So boom.
And here we have some couscous going.
We're going to go ahead and get the salmon started first.
Season it up well, and that's one thing Watson, whenever
you do a recipe, you've got to make sure it says season well.
Ginger.
You can use a spoon.
No one, and I mean no one, can cut themselves with a spoon.
Right?
GRETCHEN GAVETT: I like that you're worried, too,
because you should be.
I bet this is how Ming Tsai also chops carrots.
MING TSAI: Super thin slice first.
Restack it, make what we say in France julienne, which
is these really thin pieces.
And then come through a second time to make diced, right.
So there's my ginger, good to go.
The scallions are going to go in with the vinaigrette.
The greener part is a little bit lighter in flavor,
a little less strong.
And that is going to be for garnish.
I like the heat of the chili, so I'm
going to keep the skin and the seeds.
By the way, try a piece.
Every chili's different.
Ha!
That's good.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Slow and steady wins the race.
Oh wow.
This is going to be really exciting for all of us.
MING TSAI: This is spearmint.
That's spanking your mint.
What does that do?
It releases the oils.
Anyone can buy short grain rice, rice vinegar, mirin.
But can they make great sushi rice?
It's not the ingredients, it's the technique.
And that's this.
That's hands, and that's experience.
Computer can't do that.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: It doesn't tell me how long to do it for.
FLORIAN PINEL: Until it's done.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: I don't know what that means.
Smells really good.
Some of the ingredients weren't on some
of the instructions in ways I thought were going to be,
so I kind of had to all of a sudden improvise,
which is terrifying.
FLORIAN PINEL: What about the mushrooms?
You not cooking them?
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Oh god!
It's just left the mushrooms off.
FLORIAN PINEL: Chef Watson doesn't tell it to you.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Chef Watson doesn't--
FLORIAN PINEL: Well, you gotta add them now.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: At one point in the middle of it,
I was like, I don't know about this.
Oh god, this is going to end badly.
FLORIAN PINEL: Don't let a computer tell you
what you gotta do.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: I thought that's what
it was supposed to do.
FLORIAN PINEL: No, it's suggestions, inspiration.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Oh, suggestions.
Oh yeah, Chef Watson suggests I use my own creativity
and experience.
It's going to be so good.
FLORIAN PINEL: The instructions are pretty good.
They're not perfect, because we're providing instructions
for a recipe that has never been made before.
So if you just follow everything literally,
you might have some surprises.
MING TSAI: Two and a half cups of lemon juice?
Dude, are you a lemonade stand?
You take the two sides off a lemon, there are no seeds.
So, fresh lemon on that.
FLORIAN PINEL: Either you do what they say, and you're
going to need to make small bits, that's what I'd say,
or, you're going to decide to do this separately,
and then you can keep bigger chunks.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Yeah, I'm going to totally cut it up
into steaks.
Take that, recipe, I'm going to do my own thing.
MING TSAI: Oh, look at that, hello.
Watson, G, B, and D, baby, golden brown and delicious.
Do that, you can get yourself a restaurant.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: Oh.
Oh god!
MING TSAI: My salmon's basically ready.
I would hate to overcook it.
All our beautiful aromatics.
Cooking in that little bit of extra virgin olive
oil, and the salmon fat.
I didn't use salt, I'm using tamari.
Couscous Oh, look at that!
I like it hot and cold.
So I have this beautiful watercress, it's chilled,
I make couscous on top.
See how this vinaigrette's coming along.
Isn't that cool?
Vinaigrette needs oil, vinaigrette needs acid.
More lemon juice.
Try it, try it, try it.
Woo!
We're done.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: So Watson left it up to me
to be creative with my plating.
MING TSAI: You ready.
Boom, boom.
Now, warm vinaigrette.
Oh yeah, baby.
Wilt the watercress.
Here's the scallion greens.
Spanked mint.
That's it, brother.
The Watson Ming Tsai inspired salmon on couscous
with watercress.
Wish you had a mouth, dude.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: It is surprisingly good.
I was not expecting it to actually taste edible.
MING TSAI: All right, Watson.
I have a palate, I will be objective as well.
I will tell you how I think this tastes.
It's freaking good, dude.
Serious.
Salmon's perfectly cooked, that's money.
Lemon's great with all these other flavors.
This may go on the menu at Blue Dragon.
We'll see.
GRETCHEN GAVETT: The execution of some
of the techniques, for example, the giant chunks of carrot,
perhaps don't work very well, whereas if someone who
knew what they were doing cut everything
in a way that made sense, that would be significantly better.
But the flavors, actually, I'm surprised the flavors
go together as well as they do.
MING TSAI: Watson, nice cooking with you.
Honestly, you need a little bit more work,
but you're just a computer, so what do you expect?
FLORIAN PINEL: We're just at the beginning
of seeing the possibilities.
The idea of discovery is not tied to food.
Creativity, discovery, getting recommendations, advice,
that's all things that you can apply to your own industry,
whether it's retail, finance, travel and so on.