With AI you could smell the roses from far away
Do you ever send a photo of yourself trying on clothes to a friend to see what they think of your appearance? Now imagine doing the same from the perfume and cologne counter. AI could make that possible in the not-too-distant future following a breakthrough in ‘Scent Teleportation’. Osmo, which bills itself as a “digital olfactory company,” has managed to use AI to analyze a scent in one location and reproduce it elsewhere without human intervention.
Odor teleportation uses sensors to collect an odor and analyze it with a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC/MS). The data is then sent to a specialized molecular printer, which can synthesize and combine the chemicals needed to reproduce the scent exactly. Osmo has performed scent teleportation before, but only with humans assisting the process every step of the way.
That is no longer necessary. Osmo has successfully used AI to map the processed scent into its Principal Odor Map (POM), a database that predicts how specific combinations of molecules correspond to certain odors. AI models can then pass the molecular profile of the scent to a robotic system to create and mix a replica of the aroma. The video demonstration below by Osmo CEO Alex Wiltschko shows how it works.
It smells like AI
“Well, we actually did that. We digitized the scent. A Fresh Summer Plum was the first fruit and scent to be completely digitized and reprinted without human intervention. It smells wonderful. Holy moly, I’m still processing the magnitude of what we And yet, when we cross this finish line, it feels like we are immediately on a new starting line,” said Wiltschko shared about
AI allows Osmo to better process large amounts of data about a scent, making it more accurate and significantly streamlining the process, even when dealing with very subtle scent components. Osmo claims to have the largest AI-enabled scent database, which in turn helps train the AI to understand and reproduce scents. Scent teleportation isn’t Osmo’s only AI project. The company has also used AI to design entirely new fragrances and offer them to the fragrance industry.
Breathe in the future
While it may seem like a bizarre application of AI, scent teleportation could be a huge boon to multiple industries. Imagine putting on a VR helmet and not only seeing the virtual environment, but also smelling it. Maybe it’s not ideal for some games, but watching a VR cooking show would be much more immersive with some olfactory help. Osmo also points out the potential health implications of scent recreation in therapy for conditions such as anosmia (loss of smell) or as a way to diagnose conditions where changes in your sense of smell are a symptom.
As for sharing perfumes to get a distant friend’s opinion, companies may be leery of the idea that you would replicate their proprietary scents. But you can certainly enhance a romantic message with a photo of a flower that the recipient can actually smell. On the other hand, the most popular suggestion for using AI-assisted scent teleportation might throw you off the whole idea.
Guys, if you keep asking me to use our advanced scent teleportation technology to send farts, I’ll do it, and who’ll laugh?October 30, 2024