6 ms·

Artificial intelligence is quietly disrupting the fragrance development process

94 points by prostoalex 7y ago

DeathArrow 7y ago
I wonder how can you produce data to train ML models. Take some combo of chemicals and ask people to smell and rate it?
- thefounder 7y ago
  I guess a better way would be to monitor their brain activity. That being said I consider most of the perfumes polution.
- youngprogrammer 7y ago
  You could do something similar to how they trained a ML model to find antibiotics compounds: https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2820%2930102-1 https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2820%2930.... First, train a deep learning model to learn a representation of molecules from their molecule structures. Then feed in the thousand or so known compounds that produce pleasant or unpleasant smells as training data with some score of "pleasantness". We can then use this model to quickly score millions of compounds and select candidates to test.
  - r0b05 7y ago
    I love the explanation.
- gijzelaerr 7y ago
  Last year I worked with a start-up called Scentronix, which makes customized perfumes. The company made a device which can quickly blend fragrances on the spot based on 200 most commonly used ingredients in the business. Apparently, you can make most of the available perfumes with these base ingredients. The recipes are a bunch of known well-received recipes, and it will also blend new random recipes (with certain constraints like don't add too much of an overwhelming base scent). They sample feedback from people and train a collaborative filtering classifier. It is a hard problem, and the data is very noisy, but we did start to get better-than-random results at some point. https://scentronix.com/ https://scentronix.com/
yalogin 7y ago
This is quite fascinating. There are a lot of fragrances out there released over the years. So there is a lot of data to create models.
papandada 7y ago
The article so far just seems to be the usual AI wishful thinking from people who hope to profit from it and no disruption to speak of as yet.
- Lapsa 7y ago
  Reminds me of AI generated music which usually sounds a lot like some kind of Frankenstein - sort of recognizable bits and bytes mashed together in barely acceptable composition.
  - luckyscs 7y ago
    I've been experimenting with using Google's midi generation to be as a starting point for phrases. It's not great but can be a useful starting point. Like radiology, it seems ai can be good enough to prepare work and then have it finished by a human expert. We don't need this stuff to be human, we just need it to complement our own skills and unlock productivity/creativity that we then refine with a human context/touch.
- andarleen 7y ago
  Noticed how quiet the AI crowd has been since the pandemic? AI appears to neither save us from nor cause the end of life as we know it. Should probably stick to chat bots, fake videos and marketing stats for a while.
  - MadSudaca 7y ago
    Technological disruption is said to be exponential. Maybe the pandemic, also exponential in nature, could help us visualize the impact AI will continue to have in the future.
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    What are you even referring to? Did you ever hear a claim that AI were supposed to protect us from biological viruses for some reason in the next couple of decades?
galacticaactual 7y ago
It's curious to me that whenever these kinds of stories emerge the arguments of "why don't we spend the time/money being expended on this frivolous activity on more useful problems" are nonexistent. Contrast this with stories involving higher order aspirations (like space exploration) and those comments are legion. It's like we are drawn to the mundane out of comfort and shirk the aspirational out of fear.
- camillomiller 7y ago
  If you think that fashion and perfumery are “the mundane” you are sorely wrong. They are the most anthropologically interesting endeavor I can think of, except for maybe more formally studying remote tribes. Scents in particular is an extremely fascinating industry, marketing the invisible and crafting cultural narratives around the most primal and underrated sense we have.
  - galacticaactual 7y ago
    To each our own. I don't think work in this area serves humanity one iota. But that's my opinion and I respect yours.
    - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      What exactly is your opinion, out of interest, like how does it work? Do all the miriads of people who buy fragrances or fragrant-induced products (not to mention all the workers of that industry) just spend their money and resources on something that makes them no benefit whatsoever because they are what, too stupid? Or like they don't understand what they like? Or can't form their own decisions? In what way do those numbers not speak of some amount of "serving" these people receive from the fragrance industry? Since they keep using it, keep pouring their resources into it? Also where do you draw the line? How about video games? Do they really serve humanity after all? Porn? Christmas lights? All the work spent on designing and constructing beautiful buildings? Should all buildings just be efficient faceless boxes because it saves more resources?
allears 7y ago
I struggle to think of any artificial "fragrance" that's anything other than an annoyance to me. I include perfumes, colognes, and various kinds of masking scents that are supposed to make other products smell better. If this "industry" is "disrupted," I doubt that I would know or care. (Words in quote marks indicate cynical bemusement and a lack of time to expound on them.)
- toomanybeersies 7y ago
  A properly worn fragrance doesn't "mask" your scent, any more than jewellery doesn't mask your appearance. Fragrances shouldn't be so strong as to be particularly noticeable or overpowering, it's supposed to be subtle. In the same way as jewellery, it should complement your appearance. You wouldn't really particularly notice if someone wasn't wearing jewellery or cologne, and you definitely notice when it's garish and overpowering or tacky, but properly applied it's stunning (both jewellery and fragrance).
Avernar 7y ago
Not my comment, but exactly my thoughts: AI is a buzzword with no meaning behind it used by every idiot that runs a script on a big CSV file, so far outside of IT it can't be any less of a meme. I can already see them "analyzing" these "top 10 compliment beast" listicles and creating "sex in a bottle" and it's going to be Secretions Magnifiques II.

94 points by prostoalex 7y ago

DeathArrow 7y ago

I wonder how can you produce data to train ML models. Take some combo of chemicals and ask people to smell and rate it?

thefounder 7y ago
I guess a better way would be to monitor their brain activity. That being said I consider most of the perfumes polution.
youngprogrammer 7y ago
You could do something similar to how they trained a ML model to find antibiotics compounds: https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2820%2930102-1 https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2820%2930.... First, train a deep learning model to learn a representation of molecules from their molecule structures. Then feed in the thousand or so known compounds that produce pleasant or unpleasant smells as training data with some score of "pleasantness". We can then use this model to quickly score millions of compounds and select candidates to test.
- r0b05 7y ago
  I love the explanation.
gijzelaerr 7y ago
Last year I worked with a start-up called Scentronix, which makes customized perfumes. The company made a device which can quickly blend fragrances on the spot based on 200 most commonly used ingredients in the business. Apparently, you can make most of the available perfumes with these base ingredients. The recipes are a bunch of known well-received recipes, and it will also blend new random recipes (with certain constraints like don't add too much of an overwhelming base scent). They sample feedback from people and train a collaborative filtering classifier. It is a hard problem, and the data is very noisy, but we did start to get better-than-random results at some point. https://scentronix.com/ https://scentronix.com/

yalogin 7y ago

This is quite fascinating. There are a lot of fragrances out there released over the years. So there is a lot of data to create models.

papandada 7y ago

The article so far just seems to be the usual AI wishful thinking from people who hope to profit from it and no disruption to speak of as yet.

Lapsa 7y ago
Reminds me of AI generated music which usually sounds a lot like some kind of Frankenstein - sort of recognizable bits and bytes mashed together in barely acceptable composition.
- luckyscs 7y ago
  I've been experimenting with using Google's midi generation to be as a starting point for phrases. It's not great but can be a useful starting point. Like radiology, it seems ai can be good enough to prepare work and then have it finished by a human expert. We don't need this stuff to be human, we just need it to complement our own skills and unlock productivity/creativity that we then refine with a human context/touch.
andarleen 7y ago
Noticed how quiet the AI crowd has been since the pandemic? AI appears to neither save us from nor cause the end of life as we know it. Should probably stick to chat bots, fake videos and marketing stats for a while.
- MadSudaca 7y ago
  Technological disruption is said to be exponential. Maybe the pandemic, also exponential in nature, could help us visualize the impact AI will continue to have in the future.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  What are you even referring to? Did you ever hear a claim that AI were supposed to protect us from biological viruses for some reason in the next couple of decades?

galacticaactual 7y ago

It's curious to me that whenever these kinds of stories emerge the arguments of "why don't we spend the time/money being expended on this frivolous activity on more useful problems" are nonexistent. Contrast this with stories involving higher order aspirations (like space exploration) and those comments are legion. It's like we are drawn to the mundane out of comfort and shirk the aspirational out of fear.

camillomiller 7y ago
If you think that fashion and perfumery are “the mundane” you are sorely wrong. They are the most anthropologically interesting endeavor I can think of, except for maybe more formally studying remote tribes. Scents in particular is an extremely fascinating industry, marketing the invisible and crafting cultural narratives around the most primal and underrated sense we have.
- galacticaactual 7y ago
  To each our own. I don't think work in this area serves humanity one iota. But that's my opinion and I respect yours.
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    What exactly is your opinion, out of interest, like how does it work? Do all the miriads of people who buy fragrances or fragrant-induced products (not to mention all the workers of that industry) just spend their money and resources on something that makes them no benefit whatsoever because they are what, too stupid? Or like they don't understand what they like? Or can't form their own decisions? In what way do those numbers not speak of some amount of "serving" these people receive from the fragrance industry? Since they keep using it, keep pouring their resources into it? Also where do you draw the line? How about video games? Do they really serve humanity after all? Porn? Christmas lights? All the work spent on designing and constructing beautiful buildings? Should all buildings just be efficient faceless boxes because it saves more resources?

allears 7y ago

I struggle to think of any artificial "fragrance" that's anything other than an annoyance to me. I include perfumes, colognes, and various kinds of masking scents that are supposed to make other products smell better. If this "industry" is "disrupted," I doubt that I would know or care. (Words in quote marks indicate cynical bemusement and a lack of time to expound on them.)

toomanybeersies 7y ago
A properly worn fragrance doesn't "mask" your scent, any more than jewellery doesn't mask your appearance. Fragrances shouldn't be so strong as to be particularly noticeable or overpowering, it's supposed to be subtle. In the same way as jewellery, it should complement your appearance. You wouldn't really particularly notice if someone wasn't wearing jewellery or cologne, and you definitely notice when it's garish and overpowering or tacky, but properly applied it's stunning (both jewellery and fragrance).

Avernar 7y ago

Not my comment, but exactly my thoughts: AI is a buzzword with no meaning behind it used by every idiot that runs a script on a big CSV file, so far outside of IT it can't be any less of a meme. I can already see them "analyzing" these "top 10 compliment beast" listicles and creating "sex in a bottle" and it's going to be Secretions Magnifiques II.