Kitchens that Make us Smart

Are smart kitchens (ironically) dumbing us down?

I have long had mixed feelings for the smart kitchen.

Until I got the privilege to go to the Smart Kitchen Summit Japan, my attitude towards these smart devices was close to ignorance. It wasn’t that the new advances in the kitchen didn’t excite me, but rather, there was an underlining emotion that was keeping me away from them. At first I thought it was just a rejection response to new things, so I didn’t really bother to find out what was causing the concern.

Anyways, by the time I realized, the kitchen in 2017 was gifted with a “smart” version of most appliances. These devices allow us to learn to cook efficiently, save time in the kitchen, or even easily create professional-level tastes at our homes. The democratization of enterprise-level technologies have widened up capabilities of the home kitchen.

However even then, behind all the excitement towards the new devices, the lurking thought didn’t disappear:

Are smart kitchens (ironically) dumbing us down?

With the kitchen doing most of the work for us, we can spend less time in the kitchen. That way, we can use the saved time to pursue our dreams and leisures someplace else. Or, as the author of this Washington Post Article captures, these appliances let you experience the essential joy of cooking — getting the feeling of accomplishment and showing the care for someone else — without putting in the effort it used to take. For those haunted by the labor of everyday cooking, the kitchen environment today is almost utopian.

Of course this is just one aspect of the smart kitchen, and I fully understand and respect that these devices aim way beyond just letting us slack off. Look at the electric mixer or even the microwave. At first these technology may have received similar rejections, but today, no one feels like they’re slacking off when whipping cream with the electric tool. Rather, we can cook a much diverse repertoire of recipes at home when we take advantages of these technology.

The introduction of new technology simplifies an until-then laborious task, allowing us to achieve more. This is the same pattern that we’ve seen with almost any technology throughout human history.

Then why is it that it’s okay when we use the microwave to soften an ingredient, but it’s not if we throw in some ingredients into a smart kitchen device and press a button to let it cook for us? Is it just a matter of authenticity?

This might actually be a more complicated problem than it seems. Us humans tend to be happier when we are busy and have the self-efficacy doing the task. Mr. Koichiro Kokubun remarks in his book that what a hunter really wants is not the rabbit but the process hunting it; what the gambler wants is not the money but the ups and downs in the casino. Give the hunter the rabbit meat or the gambler infinite wealth, and they will not become any happy.

In that sense, the smart cooking device that automatically cooks a perfect meal for you is like a rifle that chases down the rabbit 100% of the time, or even a slot machine with 100% chance of winning. At first the cheat may be ecstatic, but eventually, you’ll get bored of the activity. The excitement that the activity used to bring you is gone forever.

Back to the kitchen, many of us are exhausted by everyday coking, but to have machines cook it all for us is somewhat unsatisfying. But the smart kitchen wave doesn’t wait for us to resolve the contradictory feeling.

Smart Kitchens that Make us Smart

Nevertheless, the smart, automated, and efficient kind of cooking is something we’ll inevitably see more often. However, that doesn’t necessarily imply that automated cooking will replace all kinds of cooking.

It’s better if we understand these technology as providing us with more options for home cooking. We can decide how much time and effort we want to spend in the kitchen depending on the day’s circumstances — this is wonderful. When coming home later than usual, cooking an easy meal in the smart kitchen is a much human option than just defrosting a packaged meal. Then of course, the slow and creative kind of cooking can be saved for the weekend.

If we call the quick, automated, and optimized type of cooking type A, we can easily infer the type B cooking: the slow, creative, and autotelic. In that sense, our interests are in how type B cooking will change and survive in the wave of smart kitchens.

What’s important to note here is that smart devices have the potential to enhance both type A and type B cooking. Type B cooking in no way is mutually exclusive with smart kitchens.

What we are missing are the stories. In our belief, the role of the kitchen is to enhance the ideas and stories that generate in there. With new technology and devices enabling us to do more in the kitchen, it should ultimately unlock new ideas and stories that wouldn’t have happened without them.

As always, the kitchen was one of the first places in the home for social trends to hit. With our society moving towards a smart one, how can kitchens challenge us to think; how can they make us smart?. We must continue to speculate new forms of stories in the kitchen.

So are smart kitchens really making us smart or are they just dumbing us down?

For now, the answer is yes.