Sometimes, adding just one new ingredient to a stew can ruin the whole thing.[sidenote]Olives, yecch.[/sidenote] And that’s how at least some New York Times readers see its addition of AI features to its popular Cooking app.
Here’s Genevieve Ko, NYT Cooking senior editor and columnist, explaining the new features:
We’ve just launched our latest tool, which gives cooks the ability to apply modifications to our recipes. We’re rolling it out gradually to monitor how it performs (whether it’s working fast enough, for instance) and to see how people are using it (as of now, we’re getting a lot of requests for ingredient substitutions). The tool is currently available to all Cooking subscribers on our iOS app, and we plan to make it available more broadly soon.
The Times had previously rolled out AI features aimed at converting volume-based and weight-based measurements (“What’s one cup of bok choy in grams?”) and scaling a recipe up or down to serve more or fewer people. The main new feature is focused on ingredient substitutions.
Say you’re cooking braised white beans and greens with parmesan, NYT Cooking app in hand. But you notice that you’re out of chard and only have spinach. Cooking veterans know that chard is a rough-and-tumble green that has some backbone[sidenote]There’s a reason one type of chard is known as “perpetual spinach.”[/sidenote], while spinach is a comparative wimp that will wilt the moment you look at it funny. If you need to sub in spinach for chard, how would the recipe change? Would you, for instance, add the spinach later than you would the chard to account for its pathetic stamina? That’s the sort of thing the new AI feature could account for.
Cooking staffers “spent countless hours evaluating sample after sample to get the chatbot answers to closely align with how we would answer as culinary experts,” Ko writes. “We applied the same rigor as we do to editing, grounded in Times standards.”
But because Ko knows that any AI-powered features are likely to be controversial with a Times audience, she spends quite a lot of space addressing potential objections, everything from “the impact of data centers” to “the concentration of power among A.I. companies” and “the risk of A.I. escaping our control.” These features are designed to enable “the tactile physical pleasure of cooking” and getting a “very real, very human creation” on your table.
Broadly speaking, commenters weren’t buying it.
“What a massive disappointment,” wrote Susan from New Jersey. “The internet is full of AI cooking content. I pay you because I prefer mine done by people.”
“This decision misses the mark by such a wide margin it’s baffling,” says Ian from Los Angeles. “And the disclosure just as baffling. It would not be inaccurate to summarize the piece as saying ‘I know doing this is bad and I don’t want to be associated with the bad thing so that’s why we are doing the bad thing.'”
“Nobody wants this, it’s bad for cooking, it’s bad for the NYT,” writes Bill from Pittsburgh. “Wasting a column trying to gaslight yourself and your audience into believing that it’s anything but is an embarrassment and a waste of everyone’s time.”
“PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS,” says Judah Mann of New York. “Oh, wait, you already did. Ok, I’m out.”
Or as Naomi from California puts it: “I am sad that AI has breached the one online resource I truly love.”
Because I enjoy the irony, I scraped the 171 comments left on the Times’ announcement and asked Codex (running GPT-6.1 Sol, at medium thinking) to do some sentiment analysis. (Twelve of the 171 were comments left by Times staffers; I’m excluding them here.) Roughly 77% of the reader comments were negative about the new AI features, it found, versus 14% positive and the remainder neutral or mixed. Among the biggest categories of complaint: This shouldn’t require AI. AI is destroying the environment. AI is not why I’m paying the Times $390 a year. The adjustments the AI produces are going to be bad.
Dozens of commenters asked for a way to turn off the feature. “No, not at this time,” Ko responded, “though this feature is completely optional to use.” Indeed: Don’t ask AI to substitute your chard and AI won’t substitute your chard.
One consistent thread was that cooking is supposed to present you with difficulties and challenges and the whole point is figuring them out by yourself. “Anyone using AI for cooking has no sense of taste and no desire to work out the intricacies of cooking and baking,” writes Michael King from Brooklyn. “To use AI for recipes is beyond the pale. If you are going to use AI, then just cut to the chase and defenestrate yourself.” Or BJ from North Carolina: “So, you’re telling me that I’m too stupid to figure it out on my own?”
Meanwhile, the few positive comments tended to focus on how the AI feature had, in fact, made dietary substitutions easier for them. “I love the new AI feature because it quickly (and so far) accurately converts recipes to gluten free,” Anne Wagner from Kansas City writes. “I don’t cook for stress relief,” says Andy from San Francisco. “I cook to put dinner on the table. Anything that makes the process a little faster or smoother is welcome.”
