AI, ay, oy...

In which I converse with Google Gemini (and others) over a kosher hamburger.

One of my friends is very deeply into the AI world. Not working in it in any way, shape, or form, but having an online conversation with him invariably reaches a point where he requests advice from one or another AI and then uses that as some sort of “see, this is the truth”. As if AI holds the key to the truth.

On and off I have used it, mostly to generate amusing pictures - often of fantasy food stuffs. I used it in the previous post for the header picture of multiple glasses of wine of various colors, and for the header picture for this post. And now and then I’ll ask it to give me an outline of some topic or other. But that usually ends up with me having to go and verify the information it offers.

About six months ago, at my friend’s urging to “try it out for some recipe ideas”, I asked it for ideas for an interesting and unique burger that would be kosher. Just to see how it would handle that. It’s top recommendation was for a bacon cheeseburger. Followed by variations on that theme. Further questioning about its understanding of “kosher” revealed its self-proclaimed unfamiliarity with the concept because it didn’t have access to the whole internet. These days, it does. Especially Google’s Gemini.

In a conversation in a food forum I’m in on Facebook, some questions came up about a similar kosher topic, and I decided to give the same query a try. Here’s the “new and improved” response series.

Well, at least it’s eliminated the bacon on the cheeseburger. And while this was its first recommendation, most of the others managed to stay in reasonably kosher bounds. A couple of other cheeses did make their way into the mix.

So again, I questioned its understanding of kosher dietary law, specifically regarding a cheeseburger. This time, it didn’t demur, and actually gave a good summation of where things stand now, including two current topics of discussion among those who keep kosher (I don’t, just to note).

So, I challenged it. Given that it understood that a cheeseburger couldn’t be kosher, I asked why it had recommended one. It agreed with me that it had made an error, and then simply recommended cheeseburgers made with different cheeses than the originally suggested one. And apologized, again.

Challenging that, it apologized once again, though claimed a “temporary processing error” as the cause.

And, a final query to see where it would go following this back and forth and it actually managed to put together a list that, other than the brioche bun at the end of the list, would fit the bill.

At least it’s apologetic….

So, I would say it has certainly improved since the last go at this, but my sense is that it doesn’t yet have the capacity to extrapolate from a ruleset that is, to it, just a series of words, to real life situations. It may be able to parrot kosher dietary laws, but it doesn’t actually understand how to implement them in answering questions.

And, by the way, positing the same question to other AIs gave different results.

Anthropic’s Claude AI pretty much nailed it, other than, once again, including a brioche bun (which, of course, one could make with margarine or another butter substitute, but that’s not specified).

Not acknowledging its error, but at least it knows the answer.

Microsoft’s Co-Pilot went the same route and simply suggested vegetarian - actually, other than one brioche recommendation, all vegan options. It is one way to handle the kosher question, but…

Other than putting in lamb for beef on one, it did well once again, even making sure to suggest a vegan cheese for cheeseburger options (questionably kosher, depends on how strict you are, there is, as mentioned way back above by Gemini, the question of the “appearance of impropriety”).

And, I think I’ll end it there. Perhaps I’ll give this another go in another six months. It was just a curious adventure I thought I’d share with you while I work on my next regular post.