Making a Meal of It — episode 105: Media, Tech, and AI
This episode focuses on food media, digital technology in agriculture, and some of the ways in which artificial intelligence might have an impact on cooking, eating, and nutrition. We also get into a few related themes, including food porn, celebrity chefs, data sensors, and the promises and warnings of science fiction. David talks with food scholars Signe Rousseau and Maaz Gardezi to find out where we’ve been and where we’re going when it comes to media and tech, exploring the blurry line between the digital and analog worlds of food. During the ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’ segment, Maxime offers up his opinions on futurist meals, and closing things off, we hear from ChatGPT during the Food Questionnaire.
notes
Episode 105: Media, Tech, and AI
Duration: 00:58:38
Guests:
Dr. Signe Rousseau teaches critical and digital literacy at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Her PhD focused on the rise of celebrity chefs before “food media” was a commonly used term, and she is the author of Food and Social Media: You Are What You Tweet and Food Media: Celebrity Chefs and the Politics of Everyday Interference. She is currently Co-Chair of the Editorial Collective of Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. During the podcast, she mentioned the following food folks:
- José Andres and the World Central Kitchen
- Heston Blumenthal and his restaurant The Fat Duck
- early food TV host Keith Floyd and his show, Floyd Cooks
Dr. Maaz Gardezi is a faculty member in the department of sociology at Virginia Tech. His research focused on two interrelated issues in the US and South Asia—climate change adaptation and mitigation, and the social implications of emerging digital technologies in agriculture.
For more readings on digital and precision agriculture, as well as the effects of Big Data in food production, check out the following articles:
- “Big Data in Food and Agriculture” by Kelly Bronson and Irena Knezevic
- “A Review of Social Science on Digital Agriculture, Smart Farming and Agriculture 4.0” by Laurens Klerkx, Emma Jakku, and Pierre Labarthe
- “Growing Algorithmic Governmentality: Interrogating the Social Construction of Trust in Precision Agriculture” by Maaz Gardezi and Ryan Stock
ChatGPT is an AI language model designed to assist users with a wide range of tasks and inquiries, created by OpenAI. Check out what it has to say about how AI might affect the ways people grow and eat food.
Host/Producer: David Szanto
Music: Story Mode
additional sound: William Termini via FreeSound
@makingamealpodcast
makingamealofit.com
segments
00:05:10
Signe Rousseau on food media and celebrity
00:24:28
Maaz Gardezi on digital tech in agriculture
00:40:53
‘Stick This in Your Mouth!’ (the Soylent edition)
00:52:17
the Food Questionnaire with ChatGPT
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