He New York Times is testing a new artificial intelligence feature for its cooking app that helps users modify recipes and it has caused some drama among users. NYT Cooking Senior Editor Genevieve Ko announced the feature last Friday, which can be used to recommend substitutions for ingredients and cooking equipment, scale recipes to any number of servings, and “generally make our recipes work for what a cook needs at the time.”
One of the examples given in the article shows a user requesting to use baby spinach instead of kale, and the NYT Cooking app’s feature warns that because baby spinach wilts faster, it should be added during a later step in the recipe. Ko says you can also change recipes into different pans and tools. Custom recipes are private and cannot be published or shared through the app. The AI modification feature is being rolled out gradually while the NOW monitor your performance – it’s currently available to all Cooking subscribers in the iOS app and will be available more widely “soon.”
Some NOW Readers have pushed back on the feature, citing concerns in the article’s comments section about the environmental impact of widespread AI adoption and the overall impact AI features can have on the user experience. When a user asked if there will be a way to disable the AI feature, Ko responded “No, not at this time” and noted that using the feature is “completely optional.”
“It’s incredibly disappointing to see,” said another. NOW user. “I’ve always loved NYT Cooking and it pains me that the AI mandate has come down to what used to be a wonderfully simple collection of recipes and notes from all kinds of different people.”
This is not the first time the NYT Cooking app uses AI. Ko says it was used to convert imperial volume measurements to metric weight measurements in recipes two years ago, and last year a feature was added that converts recipes to halve or double the original serving size. Comments on the new AI feature announcement post have since been closed, but NOW Spokesman Jordan Cohen says The edge That this is standard practice:
“Comments on this article remained open for four days, with Cooking editors taking it upon themselves to answer questions, address concerns and engage directly with readers. We kept that conversation open to give readers a meaningful opportunity to share feedback and hear from the team. Closing comments on older articles is standard practice at The Times so our moderators can focus on new discussions. We’re pleased to see that many members of our Cooking community are interested in exploring this tool and are already testing it in our iOS app; they’re reporting good results.”
