Culture NotTurtle: NotCo releases AI-designed 'turtle' soup - AI analyzed 300,000 plants and made 260 quintillion combinations until it found a mix of five proteins that most closely resembled turtle meat.

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NotTurtle: NotCo releases AI-designed 'turtle' soup​

By Reuters
April 30, 2024
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Bernardo Moltedo, culinary scientist in the IA area of the plant-based food company NotCo, selects spices used for their recreated veggie-based turtle soup, developed with AI at the NotCo kitchen-laboratory, in Santiago, Chile, April 19, 2024. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

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Bernardo Moltedo, culinary scientist in the AI area, and Flor Villagra, AI developer chef, of the plant-based food company NotCo, sort vegetables for their recreated veggie-based turtle soup developed with AI at the NotCo kitchen-laboratory, in Santiago, Chile, April 19, 2024

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Bernardo Moltedo, culinary scientist in the IA area of the plant-based food company NotCo, sorts vegetables for their recreated veggie-based turtle soup developed with AI at the NotCo kitchen-laboratory, in Santiago, Chile, April 19, 2024

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Flor Villagra, AI developer chef of the plant-based food company NotCo, poses for a picture while sorting vegetables used for their recreated veggie-based turtle soup developed with AI at the NotCo kitchen-laboratory, in Santiago, Chile, April 19, 2024


SANTIAGO, April 30 (Reuters) - It tastes like sought-after turtle soup but there is no trace of shelled critters in the bowl: Chilean plant-based food firm NotCo recreated this famous dish using artificial intelligence and in doing so hopes to help raise awareness about the endangered reptile.
The design and rollout of the soup was filmed for a documentary that details the laboratory and industrial work that went into making the product, interspersed with an explanation of the harm caused by the hunting of turtles for human consumption.

"We wanted to generate an impact through artificial intelligence," said Bernardo Moltedo, NotCo's AI culinary science leader.
"We have been working on this for several years. We always ask ourselves 'why not,' that's why we ended up working to help endangered species, as is the case with turtle soup," he said.
NotCo's AI analyzed 300,000 plants and made 260 quintillion combinations until it found a mix of five proteins that most closely resembled turtle meat.

For now, neither the plant-based turtle meat nor the soup are for sale but the company plans on holding a virtual class to teach people how to prepare the soup.
With a presence in 12 countries, NotCo creates foods such as hamburgers, milk, mayonnaise or ice cream from plants that simulate the taste and texture of traditional animal-based ingredients, using an AI program to help it decide what to use. The company has said it plans to go public in 2025.

Green turtles - traditionally used in turtle soup - are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list of endangered species, with their numbers affected by pollution, extreme weather and fishing. The exploitation of these sea turtles is prohibited in most countries in the world.
However, turtle soup remains in high demand in countries throughout Asia and Latin America, including China, Mexico, Peru, Malaysia and others.

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Vegans aside I think this is a really interesting use of AI. Turtles are supposedly extremely tasty and if this means I can try the soup myself without killing a sea turtle I would probably give it a go.
 
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Fireman Sam said:
I wonder what real turtles taste like though. Bet AI doesn't know!
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Not a turtle, but this is a quote about the Galapagos tortoise.

US Navy captain David Porter declared, "after once tasting the Galapagos tortoises, every other animal food fell off greatly in our estimation ... The meat of this animal is the easiest of digestion, and a quantity of it, exceeding that of any other food, can be eaten without experiencing the slightest of inconvenience."
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They were subsequently hunted to near extinction.
 
Man every pickme chick just really needs to play pretend bad bitch these days and get at least one elementary-school-scribble tattoo, don't they? "Look how bad bitch I am with my knife tattoo!"

I had a thought the other day of how fucking lucrative owning a laser tattoo removal franchise is probably gonna be in 10 years, once the next generation of teen social media influencers decide that no tattoos is chic and hip again, and all the women follow the trend. They were all over the fucking place in the mid 2000s when everybody realized how stupid and gay all the tribal tattoos from the 1990s looked, the last time that tattoos were this big of a fashion meme.
 
Isn't this the exact hypothetical of giving a room of monkeys typewriters and expecting Shakespear to be produced?
 
Turtle soup is good.

Giant tortoises weren't brought back as live specimens for centuries, just empty shells, because they represented too tempting a source of provisions on ships. Their meat was reputed to be delicious--milder and tastier than beef--and you could just store them on their backs in a stack for the voyage, they didn't make any fuss. Tortoises also keep gallons and gallons of water stored in a special organ just for that, so you can literally use them as a fresh water supply at sea.
 
I remember eating at a restaurant one time that had these large aquarium tanks right by the booths. One of my family members I was with ordered turtle soup (it came in a turtle shell, which was pretty neat), and while they ate it, this huge ass alligator snapping turtle was just staring them down, with its contemptuous beady little eyes. I have never seen such malice from an animal before.

I type all of this to say that plant-based food substitutes are cringe and this is gay.
 
I believe they use the green soft shelled turtles in New Orleans. It's considered a pest.

I wonder how much they spent figuring this out when Mock Turtle soup had existed for the 175 years.
 
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CHARizard said:
a documentary that details the laboratory and industrial work that went into making the product,
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If your "food" involves a laboratory and industrial work, it is not food.

I wonder if this magical AI analyzed this industrial lab product to see if it would cause cancer in a few years. I doubt these camera-chasing chefs thought to ask it.
 
CHARizard said:
Green turtles - traditionally used in turtle soup - are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list of endangered species, with their numbers affected by pollution, extreme weather and fishing.
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Yes but mostly dogs.
 
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