Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1217991
05.03.2020 8 OPINION Alexiei Dingli Prof Alexiei Dingli is a Professor of AI at the University of Malta and has been conducting research and working in the field of AI for more than two decades, assisting different companies to implement AI solutions. He forms part of the Malta.AI task-force, set up by the Maltese government, aimed at making Malta one of the top AI countries in the world Printing my takeout I t's Saturday night and while watching your favourite movie, an advert of a delicious pizza pops up on TV. e crust is cooked to perfection, and its cen- tre is covered with some incredible toma- to sauce. It looks so flavourful that you could name some of the ingredients; basil, ol- ive oil, and fresh garlic evenly distribut- ed inside this Italian goodness. On top of that, one can admire the mozzarella cheese melting, fusing, and forming light brown blisters orchestrat- ed like a symphony with the help of the heat. en the best part is the pepperoni which is way thicker than usual since they were imported straight from their homeland, Italy. You decide to switch on the scent dif- fuser on your TV; the smell of wood- fired baked pizza fills the room and reaches every corner of your lungs. Enough with this torture, you want one! So you instruct the 3D food printer to print you one, and you're savouring this godly food in no time. is might sound too-good-to-be- true, but in reality, the underlying tech- nology is already available and can be bought today. e only problem with today's tech- nology is that it is still very rough, and there are some limitations which I will explain below. us, it will take us a few more years until we can print a delicious pizza sim- ilar to the scenario described earlier. Scent printing has been around for over a decade. Sony developed a sys- tem which uses an electronic nose sen- sor capable of detecting and capturing smells. It then reproduces them using aro- ma-based inks on special postcard-sized photo paper. However, digital scent technology still poses many challenges. We still need to understand how mam- mals smell, the distribution of scents around a room is problematic, and the safety of synthetic odours is questiona- ble. 3D printed food is a totally different story. ese printers are capable of making various dishes using different pastes and materials. e list includes chocolate, pasta, sweets and many more. e advantages of using such a system are numerous. From an aesthetic perspective, food can be created in any complex shape and form desirable. In fact, such printers offer chefs the freedom of design which was unheard of with traditional cooking techniques. e aesthetics of the food is not only significant in Michelin Star restaurants. Whoever has children knows that a child is more likely to eat dino- saur-shaped broccoli rather than the traditional and boring tree-like ones. Health is another critical element since the ingredients of the actual food item can be decided before printing the dish. is will help people to make health- ier choices by substituting some ingre- dients with others, and they can also insert new ones to maintain a similar taste. e machine will also record what has been produced and keep an exact count of the calories consumed. Some insur- ance companies already reward people who lead a healthy lifestyle, and such a printer can contribute to that. But whereas some people choose to eat specific foods, other people don't really have a choice. In fact, the rate of gluten and dairy-free conditions (to name a few) are on the rise. With 3D printed food, the ingredients which harm the person can be excluded easily. is is also extremely important in hospitals, where they have to cook thousands of meals daily. With this technology, meals can be adapted to the patient's individual nu- tritional needs which will then help speed up the recovery. Since some patients might experience difficulties in chewing, the food can be printed using a more pleasant consist- ency, thus increasing the standard of living of the patient. Furthermore, since most of these peo- ple are on medication, integrating med- icine in the food they consume might be more straightforward, especially when dealing with children (who find swallowing drugs problematic). Printed food might also help in our fight against climate change. It is a known fact that most food sources such as meat, vegetables, etc. require lots of water to produce. Because of this, we can go for other sources such as insects which are high in protein, but many people (especial- ly those in the western world) are re- luctant to give it a try. 3D printers can quickly turn a bunch of locusts into an Argentinian steak lookalike. Food waste is another issue which these printers might address. Sometimes, food is still good for con- sumption but simply not "nice" enough to be sold. 3D printing will repurpose these leftovers into new shapes, thus making them appetising for eating plus keeping them in the food chain. As we've seen above, the era of exper- imental cuisine is taking a whole new different level. However, we still have several limitations. e printing works fine, but the food will need to be cooked separately before consumption. e biggest challenge is most proba- bly mass acceptance. 3D printed food brings a new paradigm shift, and many people are still not ready for this behav- iour change. ere is still a lot of scepticism about the ingredients used, which in most cas- es do not resemble the natural product. e technology is almost there, and it is only a matter of time now before we start seeing 3D Printers next to our mi- crowave. Once we do, it will only be a matter of downloading a Jamie Oliver recipe, print it and eat it in front of our favour- ite movie.