I HAVE A MINOR COMPLAINT: Heineken's New AI Project is a Monstrosity
The deep thinkers at Heineken Studio (“Taste the future of beer”) have come up with a very special new “experience” no drinker asked for, anywhere:
“Heineken is bringing AI behind the bar with a new Personalised Draught system capable of creating 135 different beer expressions from a single tap. Personalised Draught is designed to move beer discovery beyond simply choosing between a handful of options on a menu. Instead, drinkers can use their phones to customise their preferences, with the AI taking into account a variety of factors including taste, mood and occasion.”
How will this work? You will regret asking:
“Instead, Personalized Draught uses liquids stored in integrated barrels that can be blended in different combinations, allowing the system to adjust characteristics including flavor, intensity and alcohol content. The resulting beers can range from 0.0% to 5% ABV.”
If this is the future of beer, I’m switching to whisky.
Of course, it’s not the future of beer. It’s a gizmo Heineken can roll out for special occasions to, to … well, I have no idea. They’ve created a permanent installation in Amsterdam and have a mobile version they’ll use at events. Drinkers scan a QR code and then use an app to answer completely random questions, “including a person’s favourite films, personality traits, the current weather and even the energy of their group.” This is no doubt where AI comes in, crunching the numbers to see what kind of “expression” fans of Dumb and Dumber want on a rainy day. It is guaranteed to make people despise Heineken and AI more than they already do.
How much do I hate this? Before I answer that, let me offer this final quote from the brewery:
“Rather than replacing traditional brewing, Heineken says the technology has been calibrated by its Global Master Brewer and R&D experts, using the company’s existing brewing knowledge to determine how the different characteristics can be combined.”
“We are an old-ass brewery that has been reduced to letting algorithms squirt shit into your beer” is indeed an “innovation.”
I hate it infinity much.