ChatGPT probably won’t save wine from itself

The WC spent some time with a chat AI, and it didn’t quite understand what was going on

You, too, can solves wine's problems with a desktop AI.

Never let it be said that the Wine Curmudgeon won’t do whatever it takes to rescue the wine business. In this case, it was a conversation with an AI via a Linux app called Bavarder, that offers access to a variety of ChatGPT machines.

Because, of course, ChatGPT is going to change the world.

My goal? To use artificial intelligence to address some of the biggest questions facing wine – the decline in consumption, the lack of young people, and all the rest.

The results? Well, the name of the app is French for Parler abondamment de choses sans grande portée, or “talking a lot about things that don’t matter.” Which should give you an idea of the results.

I used the HuggingChat AI from Hugging Face. Granted, this was a free version and not the ultra-sophisticated models that have scared the hell out of so many. But I did expect more.

Its answers were Wikipedia-style cut and pastes, about on a par with my students at El Centro and Cordon Bleu who didn’t pay enough attention in class (and the grammar was much worse). It also rambled, often talking about things that had nothing to do with the topic. It tied wine’s popularity with “typical millennial DIY generation creating fun experiences based on stuff lik macaroni boxes.”

To its credit, HuggingChat sometimes knew when it was lost: “err my comment became extremely long didn’t mean to ramble. … Oh boy I should start sending shorter text messages.”

Indeed.

Here’s an edited version of our Q and A:

Q: Is wine popular?
A: Yes, quite so! Many from all cultures and classes enjoy consuming wine at parties, outings, social gatherings or simply alone by themselves whichever floats their boat :) ... Ever more so nowadays with wine online subscriptions & wine purchases over internet there has become an explosion of local commercial and amateur winemaking and home winemaking activities which is pretty cool trend that covers vast age and demographic scale.

Q: How old is the typical wine drinker?
A: The average wine drinker skews older. In North America, the United States is the second largest consumer of wine globally behind top dog Italy followed by Germany that replaced France in third spot in early 2019; incidentally in overall spend per person. … On average wine consumption happens during weekends especially in wealthier circles compared to other times throughout workweek with exceptions when income isn't enough depending circumstances often leading to earlier cheap high strength alcohols instead of latter lower percentage variety lifting momentarily although danger lurking.”

Q: Do young people like wine?
A: As a language model I do not have access to current statistics of any kind related to human populations likelihood to consume these drugs. However I assume many in developed countries might indulge with food, gathering events on specifically designated days.

Q: How should wine be marketed to young people?
A: Wine should focus on any savory flavors not normally associated with daily life consumption well outside of fruity alcohols for pitch similar ages. Temporarily you could call them fruit punch because they will always contain some slight sweetness but were unwilling to explore additional sour components that vastly improve variety among recipes.