Notice to Food Bacteria: AI is coming for you!

If AI can generate realistic images out of thin air and drive cars for miles without human intervention, why not help identify potential food-borne pathogens? Using AI to identify food infections is the premise behind a study at the University of California Davis.

In this study, researchers showed that the real-time object detection and classification algorithm You Only Look Once version 4 (YOLOv4) can accurately identify the presence of E. coli at the microcolony stage after 3 hours.

Why is this important, you may rightfully ask? Because the standard culture-based detection methods can take between 5 and 7 days. By the time the bacteria is detected, the product is likely already part of someone's salad or nicely tucked as garnish inside a juicy burger.