Fermentation and AI
Japanese: 発酵とAI
Efforts applying AI to monitor, control, and optimize fermentation processes. Data analysis is formalizing empirical brewing knowledge.
AI brings new possibilities to fermentation. Analyzing data from sensors—temperature, pH, microbial counts—AI predicts and controls fermentation progress. Efforts have begun to accumulate veteran craftspeople's empirical knowledge as data and reproduce it through machine learning. But AI cannot replace everything. Complex system behavior of microorganisms retains areas unpredictable even for current AI. AI functions best not as a substitute for craftspeople but as their additional eye. The collaboration of human sensibility and AI analytical power will open fermentation's future. AI is beginning to be used for technical succession when artisans retire—recording tacit knowledge based on years of experience as data for the next generation. As human-technology co-creation, the relationship between fermentation and AI is entering a new stage.