Against the Algorithm: How Big Tech and AI Slop Are Spoiling Cooking in the Social Media Age
This zombie-like attempt to capture people's attention is the equivalent of ultra-processed food for the brain, argues cook and food writer Signe Johansen
“No one who cooks cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”
Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking (Penguin, 1988)
In an increasingly fractious and chaotic social media landscape, Laurie Colwin’s thoughts on cooking may not be the most obvious ones to spring to mind, but to this cookbook author they carry a certain resonance.
“Cook until done.” A novice in the kitchen could be forgiven for cursing the writer who first penned those words, yet leaf through old cookbooks and underneath a set of cryptic instructions there they often were. Until only a few generations ago, any cook worth her salt would have been the beneficiary of a sensory education, using sight, sound, smell, taste and touch to assess if a dish was edible and, ideally, delicious. Recipe writers in another era simply assumed that a reader would have enough embodied knowledge to recognise when a dish was indeed done.
Therein lies the problem for food writers and cookbook authors who want to share their love of food with an audience: how to explain this to someone who has possibly never eaten, let alone tried making cardamom buns or a soufflé. Making what is implicit to a competent cook, explicit and easily understood by a lay reader (or nowadays a viewer online) is a skill honed from both experience and a command of language. Hence the reason food writers are frequently called upon by publishers to make sense of restaurant chefs’ dishes, and to translate what happens in a hectic professional kitchen into something a home cook could plausibly recreate from a restaurant cookbook.
Making sense of how a dish is made is a task not dissimilar to one that generations of women (sorry fellas, it was nearly always women) did when transcribing their mothers’ or grandmothers’ recipes. My Norwegian farmor (paternal grandmother) rarely used any recipes and just knew when something was the right consistency or texture. To the bemusement of other relatives, my attempt to preserve all that sensory experience and wisdom distilled in an elderly person’s head became something of a teenage fixation, and later the foundation for my own cookbooks.
While food writers and cookbook authors must rely principally on words to explain to readers how to make something. Digital influencers, in general, rely more on the aesthetics of food, presenting bright, enticing rainbows of ingredients, along with the audible sizzle of chopping, blending, frying, whisking, in other words the ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) of being in a kitchen. Of course, neither printed matter nor online videos can provide people with the taste, smell, or touch of a dish, arguably the only senses which matter when it comes to food.
In the wake of Meta attempting to fill their social media platforms with AI-generated characters, one wonders what kind of food influencers might be generated for unsuspecting scrollers of these platforms? Will an AI-doppelgänger of Anthony Bourdain enjoy a Diet Coke and McDonalds cheeseburger with Donald Trump in the White House, thereby erasing whatever faint memory still exists of the late Bourdain’s 2016 meal he shared with Barack Obama in a Hanoi noodle shop? Will the algorithm present a WWE-style food fight between Martha Stewart and Jamie Oliver, or will Stanley Tucci’s evil twin go on a rampage and burn down an entire Italian village because a hapless waiter in a trattoria got his pasta order wrong? AI enthusiasts are confident that genuine content will be discernible from the much-derided AI ‘slop’. Time will tell if that is indeed the case.
These are admittedly trifling examples, food has for some time been a gateway to misinformation online, especially when bound up with ‘wellness’ culture. Type the word ‘natural’ in a search bar on any social media platform and it’s easy to fall down a raw milk/ginger-cures-cancer/antivaccine/“NATO is to blame for Russia invading Ukraine” conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Once upon a time, charismatic grifters and self-proclaimed gurus would have been laughed out of town, now they're capturing the attention of millions and driving ever more engagement to social media platforms. Food is just one of many seemingly mundane subjects that have been weaponised to lure unsuspecting minds and sow general mistrust in legacy media institutions and expertise in general. How do boring old facts, rigour and expertise stand a chance against the dopamine highs of bright, colourful videos and seductive clickbait (or indeed ‘ragebait’) constantly foisted on people by online personalities, boosted algorithmically to retain user engagement?
The problems for food writers and cookbook authors who care about sharing reliable information in an extremely online world are indicative of the problems for a fragmented media ecosystem as a whole: who can one trust? Imagine going online and seeing claims that geologists recommend humans eat a rock a day, and glue be used to make cheese stick to pizza. Sound absurd? Last year that’s exactly what Google’s AI overview suggested.
Now consider a Meta-generated ‘tradwife’, modelled on a Ballerina Farm beauty extolling the virtues of all things natural. There she is, surrounded by her cherubic offspring and making a salad of rhubarb leaves. So far, so wholesome. Except, thanks to Meta scotching their human fact-checking programme, anyone who makes and eats this tempting salad at home will likely find themselves hospitalised, or dead. While rhubarb’s large, green leaves look appetising, they’re toxic to humans. Although Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s proposal to rely on Twitter-style community notes may sound reasonable in theory, relying on the beneficence of strangers on the internet sure is risky in practice.
As Bee Wilson documents in Swindled: From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee – The Dark History of The Food Cheats (John Murray, 2008) humans throughout history have adulterated almost everything edible, and a laissez-faire attitude by successive rulers and governments allowed for manufacturers and producers to behave more or less with complete impunity. In order to cut costs and be more profitable, humans have long been capable of extraordinary venality, nothing has changed in that regard. While free market ideologues still grouse about regulation, it’s now broadly accepted that regulation of food systems is a good thing. Why people don’t expect the same of an information environment remains something of a mystery.
Rather than wallow and complain, perhaps this needs to be seen as a clarifying moment. Kyle Chayka, author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture (Heligo Books 2024) concluded in his 2023 New Yorker feature ‘Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore’ that what was once a lively social landscape online where real connections were made in often unexpected, serendipitous ways, has since curdled. Algorithms are destroying what made social media platforms stimulating and fun to begin with. Watch a heartwarming video on Instagram about Italian nonnas making ravioli and Meta’s algorithm will push several similar videos in quick succession. This zombie-like attempt to capture people's attention could be considered the equivalent of ultra-processed food for the brain: highly addictive but lacking in any meaningful nourishment and ultimately unsatisfying.
That algorithmic Achilles heel in social media platforms is a weakness to be exploited: as people become increasingly disillusioned with life online, those who work in food can remind them that offline conviviality is a touchstone of real human social connection, and the vital senses of smell, taste and touch just can’t be experienced via a screen. Community and a spirit of kinship can grow from the most unlikely sources: in November 2024 the Washington Post reported on cookbook stores across the United States feeding a growing appetite for community hubs. One reason cited by Lara Hamilton of Seattle’s Book Larder: “Talking to someone is just so much better than relying on an algorithm.”
Chef José Andrés drew on his experience of running restaurant kitchens to create a formidable disaster relief operation in the form of World Central Kitchen. Another practical approach might be to contact local libraries, religious venues, schools, universities, businesses, and cultural institutions, and suggest events, partnerships or exhibitions, to treat food as a way to encourage civil society initiatives. Since the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have craved in-person experiences. Find collaborators who also see the possibilities arising from unexpected connections and have both the gumption and experience to do something about it.
Using digital tools creatively to strengthen already existing networks and build new ones is another constructive response to the challenges everyone faces in the age of social media and AI. On Ruthie’s Table 4, River Cafe restaurateur Ruth Rogers’ podcast features erudite conversations with the likes of Adam Gopnik, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Christiane Amanpour, alongside big hitters from the food world such as Yotam Ottolenghi and Nigella Lawson. Her interviews with cultural legends Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen and Mel Brooks are a good reminder that sitting down at a dining table together can lead to meaningful connections and serendipitous discoveries: the kind once found on social media platforms. Let’s have more of this cross-pollination, both on and offline please.
Signe Johansen is the author of seven books on food, drink and culture, and co-writer/ghostwriter/recipe tester of a dozen more.