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In between the many predictions of professional displacement and civilizational doom at the hands of artificial intelligence (A.I.) tools like ChatGPT, people are discovering some genuinely useful ways to incorporate them into the more mundane parts of life. They’re adept at improving emails, recommending new bands, and helping with homework.

Folks are putting ChatGPT to work in the kitchen, too, to great effect. In a recent Twitter thread, a Silicon Valley CEO described his “surprisingly delightful” ChatGPT-powered dinner party where the A.I. program suggested fusion themes and generated a menu, serving sizes, and cooking instructions. As someone who spends far too much time digging online for recipes, I decided to see whether ChatGPT could make me more efficient in the kitchen.

I started by asking for cuisine suggestions, which ChatGPT spat out with minimal prodding. After it gave me a laundry list of options, explaining why certain flavors and ingredients would pair well, I decided on a Moroccan-inspired menu consisting of an entree, a vegetable side, and a cocktail. Not every option was a winner, and plenty of the recipes I got during the discovery process featured errors only a robot would makefor instance, a Mediterranean-style chicken and chorizo stew that featured just one cup of broth, and an ostensibly Moroccan-themed mule that simply repeated the ingredients of a Moscow mule.

Still, it took some 15 minutes to receive dozens of recipe suggestions tailored to my cuisine and flavor preferences, with steps and ingredients fully spelled out such that I could pick the dishes best suited to my on-hand ingredients and available time. I settled on three promising options: Moroccan chicken skewers with spiced yogurt sauce, Moroccan-spiced roasted carrots, and a Marrakech mule.

Barring a few personal tweaksadding more paprika and introducing honey to the yogurt sauce, adding olive oil to the (otherwise dry) chicken marinade, baking the skewers instead of grilling themI was impressed with ChatGPT’s output. The mule, a combination of lime, orange, honey, and ginger, was a real treat. The chicken and carrots were a bit redundant, with ChatGPT proposing essentially the same seasonings for bothbut they were flavorful nonetheless. As an experiment in reducing my planning time while maintaining or improving recipe quality, I have no complaints.

Kitchen-helper A.I. has been in the works for a while now. In 2014, Bon Apptit ‘s test kitchen teamed up with IBM’s Chef Watson, a recipe-creating computer program, to invent new dishes. Working with an information bank of 10,000 Bon Apptit recipes, Watson could “understand and reproduce their underlying logic and style” to propose novel ones, many involving unique ingredient pairings that don’t go together intuitively, but instead work “on a fundamental chemical level.”

Promising, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Testing the program in 2016, The Guardian ‘s Leo Benedictus noted that “Chef Watson recommends an ingredient called ‘Mollusk’, which it helpfully explains is ‘the sixth full-length album by Ween.'” Watson’s performance in a cooking challenge against chef Yotam Ottolenghi yielded “a flavour rather close to the farmyard, but not uneatable.” (Of course, Ottolenghi and his team had the advantage of being able to “taste and discuss flavours, colours, temperatures, in a way that Watson can’t.”) Florian Pinel, Chef Watson’s lead engineer, told Benedictus that a feedback mechanism could be on its way in the future.

ChatGPT is highly adept in that way. When I told it that I don’t have a grill, it suggested I saute. When I rejected its seafood recipes, it switched to chicken options. When I mentioned that I didn’t have the mint or cilantro the spiced yogurt recipe called for, it suggested I substitute coriander or parsley to compensate for the missing flavor. (To the robot’s credit, both fit the Moroccan theme.)

Still, A.I.-generated recipes haven’t escaped criticism. Some of that centers on cultural appropriation concerns: A Food and Wine ChatGPT experiment prompted the author to worry that a Korean BBQ nacho recipe “did not accurately represent the complexity of Korean cuisine, and it felt like a superficial appropriation of cultural recipes” that lacked “contextual understanding of what truly constitutes Korean BBQ.” Tash McGill, president of Food Writers New Zealand, warned that these recipes “can easily stray into issues with cultural appropriation or untested techniques.” A 2014 Slate article fretted over the intellectual property implications of A.I. recipes, also wondering who might be held liable if an A.I.-driven commercial kitchen caused an allergic reaction.

Intellectual property issues will be ironed out in time, and A.I.-induced allergic reactions are unlikely to be problematic in private kitchens. As for cultural appropriation concerns, those misunderstand one of ChatGPT’s biggest advantages as a cooking tool: its ability to creatively incorporate snippets of a culture’s cuisine to varying degrees and in ways that consider the user’s culinary preferences and background. You can start with a format you lovesalads or soups, for exampleand ask ChatGPT to use it as a canvas for an unfamiliar cuisine. Or you can start with a cuisine you love and ask ChatGPT to marry it to a new one. From Mediterranean-Mexican to Japanese-Italian, the resulting recipes sound surprisingly delicious, even if they’d make culinary purists blush.

As a kitchen assistant, ChatGPT is most helpful when its efforts are combined with human onesvetting for errors, adjusting seasonings to taste, and making ingredient or equipment limitations known. A.I. won’t destroy cooking, but it has huge potential to make chefs more creative and efficient.

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Technology

Here’s where Apple makes its products — and how Trump’s tariffs could have an impact

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Here's where Apple makes its products — and how Trump's tariffs could have an impact

Apple’s iPhone 16 at an Apple Store on Regent Street in London on Sept. 20, 2024.

Rasid Necati Aslim | Anadolu | Getty Images

Apple has made moves to diversify its supply chain beyond China to places like India and Vietnam, but tariffs announced by the White House are set to hit those countries too.

U.S. President Donald Trump laid out “reciprocal tariff” rates on more than 180 countries on Wednesday.

China will face a 34% tariff, but with the existing 20% rate, that brings the true tariff rate on Beijing under this Trump term to 54%, CNBC reported. India faces a 26% tariff, while Vietnam’s rate is 46%.

Apple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Here’s a breakdown on Apple’s supply chain footprint that could be affected by tariffs.

China

The majority of Apple’s iPhones are still assembled in China by partner Foxconn.

China accounts for around 80% of Apple’s production capacity, according to estimates from Evercore ISI in a note last month.

Around 90% of iPhones are assembled in China, Evercore ISI said.

While the number of manufacturing sites in China dropped between Apple’s 2017 and 2020 fiscal year, it has since rebounded, Bernstein said in a note last month. Chinese suppliers account for around 40% of Apple’s total, Bernstein said.

Evercore ISI estimates that 55% of Apple’s Mac products and 80% of iPads are assembled in China.

India

Apple is targeting around 25% of all iPhones globally to be made in India, a government minister said in 2023.

India could reach about 15%-20% of overall iPhone production by the end of 2025, Bernstein analysts estimate. Evercore ISI said around 10% to 15% of iPhones are currently assembled in India.

Vietnam

Vietnam has emerged in the past few years as a popular manufacturing hub for consumer electronics. Apple has increased its production in Vietnam.

Around 20% of iPad production and 90% of Apple’s wearable product assembly like the Apple Watch takes place in Vietnam, according to Evercore ISI.

Other key countries

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Politics

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

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Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.

The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.

Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).

Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin

Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.

It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Source: Bitcoin Laws

The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.

26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US

Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.

Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.

Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Arizona currently leads in the US state Bitcoin reserve race. Source: Bitcoin Laws

Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Related: North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system 

Law, Bitcoin Regulation, United States, Policy, Bitcoin Reserve

Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws

According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

Additional reporting by Helen Partz.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

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Environment

Hyundai’s super-efficient Ioniq 6 updated with sportier look, ‘N’ model coming soon

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Hyundai's super-efficient Ioniq 6 updated with sportier look, 'N' model coming soon

Hyundai has unveiled the design refresh of its Ioniq 6 sedan, and announced that it will become a family of cars rather than a single model, with an N Line trim and upcoming N performance model, much like its sister car the Ioniq 5.

Hyundai has been doing great with its EVs lately, hitting sales records and getting great reviews.

Much of that focus has been on the Ioniq 5, an attractive crossover SUV with lots of capability at a good price – and a bonkers N performance version which has been breaking different kinds of records.

The Ioniq 6, conversely, hasn’t attracted quite as much attention, even though it has some records of its own (it’s the most efficient vehicle in the US… for under $70k).

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Between its admittedly odd looks – much more aerodynamic and rounded than the comparatively blocky 5 – and it fitting into the less-popular (but better) sedan form factor, it just hasn’t captured as much imagination as the 5.

It has also fallen somewhat behind. The Ioniq 5 got a big update this year, including a native NACS port, the first non-Tesla mass market vehicle to hit the road with one of these included (and it even charges faster than a Tesla does on home turf). The 6, however, is still sitting on its original design from when it first started production/shipping in 2022/23.

But that’s about to change, as Hyundai is giving the model some love with a design update and some hints at new things to come.

We’ve seen spy shots of these design updates before, but now Hyundai is showing them to everyone at the Seoul Mobility Show.

Hyundai showed two models today, the standard Ioniq 6 and the “N Line,” an upgraded trim level with some interior and exterior changes to look a little more sporty. Hyundai has used similar nomenclature for its other models, and that carries over here.

Both have a redesigned front end, making it look more aggressive than the prior bulbous and aerodynamic shape, and narrower headlights.

The N Line looks even more aggressive than the standard model, though, with an even more aggressive front and rear end.

Hyundai says that the redesign will also include interior enhancements for “a more comfortable, intuitive experience,” with a redesigned steering wheel, larger climate control display, upgraded materials and redesigned center console with more physical controls.

Beyond this, the refresh was light on details – intentionally, with a full unveil of specs and changes coming later. We can imagine a lot of the improvements on the 2025 Ioniq 5 will be carried over, such as a native NACS port for example, and potentially a slightly larger or faster-charging battery.

We had also previously heard hints that an N version (yes, “N” and “N Line” are different, no, we don’t know why they used these confusing names) of the Ioniq 6 is coming, and Hyundai reiterated those hints today – even giving us a glimpse of the car in the background of one of its shots.

Now THIS one looks quite aggressive, with a bigger double wing and potentially some changes to the diffuser (it’s hard to tell from the shot, as the N Line also has a modified diffuser).

The ioniq 5N has earned rave reviews from enthusiasts for its bonkers driving dynamics and comparatively reasonable price for a true performance vehicle. But it’s still an SUV format, and frankly, an SUV will never be a sportscar no matter how many horsepower you put into it (I will die on this hill).

The 6, however, with its sedan shape and footprint, could make for a much more compelling sports package once it’s all put together. So we’re very excited to see what Hyundai can do if they apply the same magic they put into the 5 into a new 6N. Looking forward to July.


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