You call this authentic Thai food? Let a robot be the judge

Yingluck Shinawatra, an ex-prime minister of Thailand, was so fed up of eating bad Thai food in other countries while on diplomatic missions that she started a new government initiative – the idea of having a robot that would be able to evaluate how authentic a Thai dish is. Although she was ousted from government in May, Thailand loved the idea so much that the Thai National Innovation Agency was instructed to develop two taster robots using nanotechnology that can measure and analyse the flavours of Thai food.

There are many Thai restaurants all around the world that are not owned by Thai people. They are owned by Vietnam or Myanmar, or maybe even Italian or French.

Thai National Innovation Agency advisor Supachai Lorlowhakarn

The first robot, named e-Delicious, cost about $100,000 to produce. It has an electronic nose consisting of 16 gas sensors, together with an electronic tongue that can detect salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami (meat or savoury) flavours. The second robot, called ESenS, is the size of a printer and runs an application on the mobile operating system Android to analyse food samples detected by micro-sensors against the database of Thai government-standardised recipes. In order for a dish to do well, the food sample has to score at least 80 out of 100.