ChatGPT and wine: extinction-level event for wine writers and sommeliers?

by Simon Pavitt

As the COO of London Technology Club who’s enjoyed a glass or two with Jane Anson talking fine wine and technology now and again (I even wrote an article on NFTs and wine), when Jane asked me to write about a new tool using cutting edge technology called ChatGPT and its potential impact on wine, I was happy to help. So here goes…

What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a computer program that can understand and respond to human language. It can be used to generate text, answer questions, and perform other language-related tasks. It’s trained on a vast amount of text data, so it can provide answers and respond to questions in a way that’s similar to how a human would. It was created by OpenAI, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research laboratory founded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in 2015. Musk subsequently resigned from the board in 2018 but is still a donor to the non-profit part of the company.

It is very simple to use. You type in your question or needs and it starts to generate a response in about three seconds. You watch it type in real time and the answer unfolds in front of you. Think Google but rather than showing you sites to then to go to read more on, ChatGPT writes the answer, even in essay form. Once you receive that write up, you can refine with new questions and the program learns and refines for you. This is a very simplistic description – its power is vast, from writing code to text generation, language translation, automated content generation and more.

So how it might it impact the wine industry?
The fine wine industry is one that has traditionally relied on the expertise of human sommeliers and wine connoisseurs to navigate the complex and nuanced world of wine production and consumption. However, with something such as ChatGPT it’s hard to not think that the industry is facing the possibility of a paradigm shift in the way that wine is described, marketed, and sold…

One of the most significant impacts that ChatGPT will have on the fine wine industry is in the realm of wine description and marketing.

The ability of ChatGPT to generate detailed and nuanced descriptions of wine can be used to create effective and compelling marketing materials, both online and in print. This can be particularly useful for small and medium-sized wineries that may not have the resources to employ a full-time sommelier or wine expert. Additionally, ChatGPT can be used to generate reviews and ratings of wines, which can help to build trust and credibility with consumers. But slightly worrying that people could increasingly game the ratings game, this time with perfectly formed sentences that others may be influenced with certain buzz words autogenerated by ChatGPT… knowing what people want to read.

Another important impact of ChatGPT on the fine wine industry is in the area of wine pairing and recommendations.

The ability of ChatGPT to understand and analyse the complex flavour profiles of different wines can be used to create highly personalized and accurate wine pairing recommendations for consumers. This can be particularly useful for restaurants and other food-service establishments that want to offer their customers the best possible wine-pairing experience.

In addition to these applications, ChatGPT can also be used to assist with tasks such as inventory management and customer service in the wine industry.

For example, ChatGPT can be used to track the inventory of different wines in a cellar and generate alerts when certain bottles are running low. Additionally, ChatGPT can be used to interact with customers and answer their questions about wine, providing them with the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions.

What can go wrong?
Despite the many potential benefits of ChatGPT in the fine wine industry, there are also some potential drawbacks to consider.

One of the main concerns is that the increasing reliance on technology may lead to a decline in the expertise and knowledge of human sommeliers. ChatGPT is a machine learning model and its output may not match a human sommelier expertise. Human sommeliers and wine experts bring a wealth of knowledge, experience, and creativity to the table, and their contributions help to make the industry more dynamic and exciting. Without their expertise and creativity, the industry may become more homogenous and less interesting to consumers.

Human sommeliers are able to use their intuition, palate, and experience to make highly personalised and accurate wine recommendations that take into account a wide range of factors, such as the individual tastes and preferences of a consumer. Without their expertise, the recommendations and pairings generated by ChatGPT or other technology may be less accurate and less satisfying, and it is going to be important for the industry to take steps to ensure that the human expertise and creativity of sommeliers and other wine experts are not lost in the process.

Additionally, wine writers often have the opportunity to taste wines that are not yet available for purchase, and to provide early impressions and ratings, which can be very useful for consumers who are interested in purchasing these wines in the future.

In conclusion, while ChatGPT and other natural language processing technologies have the potential to generate detailed and accurate descriptions of wines, they are unlikely to completely replace human wine writers for tasting notes in the near future. The knowledge, experience, and personal touch of human wine writers are still essential for providing accurate and engaging tasting notes and evaluations.

And while you’re here…
You may or may not be surprised to learn that 90% the above article was written by ChatGPT. Even the image accompanying the article was created by NightCafe which uses OpenAI’s DALL-E, and was generated from a prompt given by my natural language description.

For the article, I simply asked how ChatGPT will affect the wine industry, in positive and negative ways, and above are the answers. All I had to do was to curate the responses and make the article flow more coherently. The whole process took me around one hour compared to probably two dedicated days researching this subject for a usual technology and wine article.

This has got to prompt questions as to the future impact on writers writing about wine, and any other specialist subjects. Either ChatGPT (and the forthcoming upgrade to GPT4 which is expected to be even more powerful in its capabilities and processing power) could be an amazing tool for productivity, or it could create a definitive shift towards AI tools taking over certain tasks and jobs in the wine industry.

This is one of the first times that an AI tool of this type has become available to the mainstream, certainly one that is so easy to use and inevitably its adoption will be fast. Have a go if you can get on the platform (it’s currently overloaded so not accepting new users), and take comfort in the thought that OpenAI has said it is, “looking to align AI systems with human intent for the benefit of all humanity… training AI systems to do what humans want”.

We might want to brace ourselves, but I remain optimistic about its positive potential.

Simon Pavitt is the Chief Operating Officer of the London Technology Club. A community of over 100 HNWIs, venture capital firms, pioneering tech founders and institutional investors. More about the club can be found at www.londontechnologyclub.com.

Simon also writes about fine wine and passion projects at www.capstones.co