AI Bogosity in Berkeley

The scent of desperation

Bottle of “Triumph” Perfume by Sensori.Ai

Attentive readers of FirstNerve know that I am highly skeptical that AI has anything useful to offer the world of fragrance and human odor perception. (See here and here.)

The initial commercial objectives for an olfactory AI startup may sound reasonable, but they quickly expand into grandiosity and then into desperate cries for media attention. The case of Osmo, and its CEO Alexander B. Wiltschko, is instructive. You can see my take here.

As of today, it looks like Wiltschko has some competition in the AI hucksterism arena.

Inauguration—What’s The Scent of “Triumph”? Sensori.Ai Answers: It’s Bigly—with Extra Musk

BERKELEY, Calif., Jan. 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- What scent memories are triggered in voters’ nonconscious minds when they hear President Trump’s speeches? Top notes of Green Grass and Spices, with middle notes of Leather, Vetiver, Cypriol Oil, and Rose, with a base of Amber and Musk combine to produce what Sensori.Ai has labeled “Triumph”—a unique fragrance based upon the texts of the incoming President’s public remarks.

If this press release is to be taken seriously, Sensori.Ai fed Donald Trump’s public remarks into its AI model which then produced the scent memories (or is it the unique fragrance?) evoked in the nonconscious minds of voters. [Harris voters or Trump voters?—Ed.] [Don’t even start; plus why would a company in deep blue Berkeley attempt to leverage Donald Trump in a positive way?]

It doesn’t take an AI model to determine that this press release is load of horseshit. Nevertheless, curious minds what to know: what is Sensori.Ai?

Sensori.Ai is driven by a breakthrough concept: NeuroAi, combining the latest advances in artificial intelligence with the unparalleled knowledge and power of neuroscience. The advent of NeuroAi opens a limitless global potential: reaching consumers with innovations in products, services, marketing, music, flavors and fragrances, and much more—at speeds and with accuracies and relevance never before possible.

Neato!

And who created this breakthrough, unparalleled, limitless company? Why that would be its CEO, Anantha K. Pradeep. He received a PhD in Engineering (Nonlinear Control Systems) from UC Berkeley in 1992, and founded NeuroFocus, a company which used EEG and eye-tracking to measure consumer response to stimuli. NeuroFocus was later acquired by Nielsen Holdings, the outfit that created the old Nielsen TV ratings.

According to Pitchbook, Sensori.Ai was founded in 2016, has two investors, and 12 employees. (Well, 15 employees if you go by the company’s online “Leadership” page.) It’s located in an office suite on Ninth Street in Berkeley, just a block away from Juan’s Place, a down-home Mexican restaurant favored by generations of Cal people, me included.

The casual observer might conclude that the Sensori.Ai press release—issued the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration—is merely a pathetic plea for attention by an unknown Bay Area startup. A more cynical view is that it is a lame attempt to promote a recently published book by CEO Pradeep and his Sensori.Ai co-geniuses Anirudh Acharya (Chief AI Officer), Rajat Chakravarty (COO), and Ratnakar Dev (CTO).

All in all, I think this is one more piece of evidence that the olfactory AI craze is setting itself up for a crash of DotCom magnitude.