Will AI improve or damage food safety in the next 5 years?

New month, new poll.  
 

I'm going to say it can offer somewhat of an improvement, all dependent on how it gets utilized.  I'm loosely experimenting with it in my audit reviews for supplier approvals, and just using Co-Pilot through our existing company licenses is showing it can identify the key items we review farm audits for (of course verified by human after).  You can give it a set of prompts (check for x, check for y, check for z), and it can spit out either quick bullet points or go into details into a Word doc report with full supporting details.  Ex: I asked it to review a packinghouse for whether wash steps are applied to blueberries, it bullet point confirmed yes and then offered a detailed explanation of the steps and included the ppm of the sanitizers and how often they're monitored.

We're toying with it to see if it can review an entire audit and make some cause\effect type correlations.  So far it's not great but we're also experimenting with it to see what trends it can find in our raw EMP data, or our pest control findings.  The PC findings were interesting, because you can ask it to review the trends by dates and have it search for weather patterns in the area.  Right now using it as a tool to support the human is showing some promise, but I'm not eager to have it take over any tech level roles anytime soon. 

Over-reliance would absolutely be a problem in the coming future.  We already struggle to find individuals willing to learn about this field, and if they start using plug-n-play AI tools to do the job a human should know how to do, then we lose the ability to train humans who can see where the AI makes errors.  It has the potential to look like these problems in college where students are writing essays with AI, educators are grading the essays with AI, and no one is actually learning or teaching anymore...

That is scary - writing and grading being done by AI. 

I had a customer use AI to interpret different standards requirements the other day and it was just wrong to the point of actually having the opposite meaning.  

I've also used it for an academic summary with references.  When I checked the references they were either BS or not stating what was claimed.

So as ever, beware.  Also be aware that some of the AI tools capture your data.  So if you upload a report, they then have that report to use as source data for anyone else.  Same with audit results etc.  Be logged in and know the security stuff about what you're using.

But that all said, it has potential.  I think there are some "big data" options with it.  

 

New month, new poll.  
 

Everyone’s talking about AI right now, but what about its impact on food safety?

 

Some see it as a game-changer for traceability, audits, and training. Others think it could create new risks and over-reliance.

 

What do you think?

 

When it comes to food safety, AI might really help with things like tracking where food’s been, catching problems quicker, and even helping train folks on proper handling. Big companies with deep pockets and tech teams might see big gains. But for smaller processors, like family-run operations or mom-and-pop shops, it’s a different story. The cost of the equipment, not having the tech know-how, and just trying to get good data in the first place... that’s a tall order. There's also the risk of trusting these systems too much without understanding how they’re making decisions. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, especially when lives are on the line. That said, if we can make these tools simpler, more affordable, and something folks can actually understand and use, AI could help raise the bar for food safety across the board.