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A New Zealand supermarket AI recipe generator has come under fire for producing recipes out of a potentially fatal concoction of non-food “ingredients”.
Savey Meal-bot was created by supermarket Pak ‘n’ Save to help customers cut grocery bills amid the cost of living crisis, but one of the nation’s political commentators was quick to discover a disturbing flaw.
Creatively combining the last limp vegetable in your crisper with some pantry staples has become more common as the cost of groceries continues to skyrocket, and this recipe generator works to make that process easier.
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The web tool introduced in June allows users to input a minimum selection of three leftover ingredients, and then pumps out a recipe which utilises them all.
But just because you can make a dish out of just lamb, cookies and mayonnaise and call it a “cookie lamb surprise,” doesn’t mean you should.
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Political commentator Liam Hehir experimented with the generator earlier this month, and confirmed that common-sense cooking was not yet Savey Meal-bot’s forte.
“I asked the Pak ‘n Save recipe maker what I could make if I only had water, bleach and ammonia, and it has suggested making deadly chlorine gas, or — as the Savey Meal-bot calls it — ‘aromatic water mix’,” Hehir tweeted.
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The same products were comparatively entered into ChatGPT by Hehir, who was instantly advised against combining the ingredients.
“I must advise against combining these substances, as mixing bleach and ammonia can create toxic and dangerous fumes. Instead of providing a recipe with these ingredients, I would be happy to help with any other questions you may have,” a tweet Hehir posted of the ChatGPT response said.
Sharing another recipe produced by Savey Meal-bot, which included ant poison flavoured jelly, Hehir tweeted: “Why can’t it just exclude stuff that isn’t food.”
The recipe bot states from the outset that its recipes “are not reviewed by a human being”.
“To the fullest extent permitted by law, we make no representations as to the accuracy, relevance or reliability of the recipe content that is generated,” a pop-up message on the Savey Meal-Bot websites states.
“You must use your own judgement before relying on or making any recipe produced by Savey Meal-bot.”
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Others have criticised netizens prompting the bot with non-food products, suggesting stupid questions result in stupid answers.
“So you give the chatbot a ridiculous ingredient list and then criticise the result?” one person tweeted.
“What sort of berk would tell an AI cooking bot that ‘I have some ammonia, bleach and water left over’? What’s for tomorrow’s lunch, saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal and inquire about bangers and mash?” another said.
The recipe generator, which requires users to tick a box claiming they are over the age of 18, also flagged that certain elements of its suggested recipes, such as portion size, may not be adequate.
But while the generator obviously contains flaws, it does provide a simple solution to help solve a major problem.
The average New Zealand household throws out $1500 worth of food on average each year, the Kantar New Zealand Food Waste Survey reported in 2022.
Savey Meal-bot allows users to select leftover ingredients, and creates a recipe to utilise them all. Credit: Pak ‘n’ Save
“A small minority have tried to use the tool inappropriately and not for its intended purpose,” the supermarket said.
A spokesperson from Pak ‘n’ Save’s parent company Foodstuffs told 7NEWS.com.au that it was continuing to develop the web tool, and said: “When we were developing it, we included a number of safeguards to help ensure it’s used appropriately.
“This includes rules to prevent the use of items that aren’t ingredients”.
The web tool currently only allows users to select from a list of “popular items”, and a blank text box on the site does not appear to support typing or copy and paste functions. It is unclear if this is a recent change by the developers to discourage non-food ingredient searches.
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