Giving Compass' Take:

• The New Food Economy profiles a startup called Analytic Flavor System, which will use A.I. to personalize the flavor of food. What are the broader implications if it works?

• This article delves into a philosophical discussion about the role technology can play in our food system — the possible benefits and downsides. But it also has a tangential lesson for all nonprofits: Be more precise with your data gathering!

• Here's why wealthy Americans know less than they think they do about food.

"My take is that pretty much all the food and beverage products on the market today are awful,” Jason Cohen tells me, with fierce conviction. “There are literally no products engineered for me.”

Cohen is the founder and CEO of Analytic Flavor Systems, an NYC-based start-up that aims to usher in a new era of hyper-personalized food. We are meeting at a swank Australian coffee shop near the company’s office in the financial district — the kind of place that offers multiple single-origin pour-over options — so he can tell me about his artificial intelligence (A.I.) platform, Gastrograph, which he says can be used to map taste preferences with unprecedented ease and precision. Cohen is lanky and self-possessed, with hair the color of damp straw. He drinks his coffee with the studied concentration of someone who takes flavor extremely seriously ...

An algorithm has no tastebuds; a neural net never gets the munchies. So can a robot brain really tell us what we’ll want to eat? The question is whether A.I. systems will be able to excel in the sensual, creative work of tasting and developing new foods — and what we stand to gain or lose by inventing foods that really have our number.

Read the full article about how A.I. can affect the way we experience food by Nadia Berenstein at The Guardian.