Nestlé would like to introduce Ruth, its new “digital human” aimed at helping bakers perfect their cookie recipes. You can think of her as Alita the Battle Angel meets Ina Garten, but the wide-eyed AI (artificial intelligence) creation is the face of Nestlé’s Cookie Coach helpline. You can chat with Ruth via the helpline, a joint effort with Soul Machines, and see just how successful the companies are in trying to “leverage the full capabilities and goodness of human and machine collaboration in a responsive, relatable, and unprecedented way.” How does Ruth stack up? According to Vice, “Ruth seems, honestly, pretty helpful, especially for people who haven’t baked much or for those who can’t pin down why their cookies go all wonky and don’t know who else to ask.” Communicating with an entity that has a face, albeit a slightly creepy one, is probably still more pleasant than a conversation with an unfamiliar, disembodied voice during a time when many of us crave camaraderie with our cookies.
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