AI IS CRACKING A HARD PROBLEM – GIVING COMPUTERS A SENSE OF SMELL

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

Smell in humans is experienced through about 400 types of receptors in the nose. Scientists are using machine learning to help computers learn what certain molecules or sets of molecules smell like to humans. Machine learning is key to digitizing smells because it can learn to map the molecular structure of an odor-causing compound to textual odor descriptors. Dataset sizes have grown significantly in the past few years, allowing researchers to finally apply machine learning to machine olfaction. The technology has promising applications such as personalized perfumes and fragrances, better insect repellents, novel chemical sensors, early detection of diseases, and more realistic augmented reality experiences.