If you think about it, technology has always been about adding convenience to our life, always been about satisfying our sensory experiences – be it sights or sounds and then some. Through relentless advancements in tech over the decades, we’ve managed to capture and transmit images, sounds, and even tactile sensations across vast distances. Yet, one sense has stubbornly eluded our digital grasp: smell. Until now, that is, thanks to a startup called Osmo.
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I don’t think many of you would’ve heard of Osmo, an enterprising startup doing pioneering work in “digital olfaction,” and it recently announced a breakthrough that could redefine how we interact with the digital world. According to Osmo’s CEO, Alex Wiltschko, they’ve successfully achieved what they call “scent teleportation.” Sure it sounds way too fancy, but it’s the ability to capture a scent in one location and reproduce it elsewhere using artificial intelligence.
I’m pretty sure that’s something we haven’t come across before, in any sort of tangible way – and won’t either any time soon. Needless to say, this development by Osmo not only pushes the boundaries of technology but also challenges our understanding of what’s possible at the crossroads of digital and physical realms. We’re at the cusp of the unknown phygital!
Honestly speaking, the concept of transmitting scents isn’t entirely new. Just look up “Smell-O-Vision” experiments of the past, and you’ll understand how transmitting the sense of smell digitally has always resulted in gimmicks rather than practical technologies in the past. The complexity of odours, composed of countless volatile molecules interacting in intricate ways, made them a formidable challenge for scientists and engineers to demystify and recreate. But this is where AI cracked the code.
You see, Osmo’s approach combines advanced AI algorithms with sophisticated chemical analysis. They use something known as a Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS) to break down a scent or odour into its basic molecular components. This data is then processed through their Principal Odour Map (POM), an AI-driven model that predicts how specific combinations of molecules correspond to particular smells. Once the scent is digitised, it’s transmitted to a molecular printer that synthesises and combines the necessary chemicals to recreate the aroma at a different location.
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If all that is too much tech mumbo jumbo for your brain, simply know that Osmo’s researchers have found a way to “record” a smell and “play it back” elsewhere – similar to how we experience pre-recorded audio or video files in digital format. This feat moves us a significant step closer to fully immersive digital experiences, where all five senses are engaged.
To appreciate the magnitude of this achievement, it’s worth comparing it to other technological leaps in human history. Take for instance the invention of the telegraph, which shrunk the world by enabling instant communication across continents. Similarly, the telephone brought voices into our homes, and television added moving images to our living rooms. The internet connected us all in a web of information and interaction that’s nothing short of magic.
Osmo’s breakthrough in digitising smell addresses the last of the primary human senses that had largely remained untouched by technology. It’s akin to adding the final piece to a complex tech-fuelled puzzle of human experience replication. Just as the introduction of colour transformed black-and-white television, the ability to transmit scents, smells and odours will revolutionise lots of industries.
Imagine virtual reality experiences that not only show you a rainforest but allow you to smell the damp earth and fragrant flowers. Movies that put you into the thick of the action by letting you smell every scene’s environment like never before. Culinary shows could let you catch a whiff of the dishes being prepared, adding a new dimension to remote learning and entertainment. In medicine, scent therapy could be administered digitally to patients needing olfactory stimulation. I mean the sky’s the limit right now, if you think about the areas in which Osmo’s digital smell transport tech can be applied.
What makes Osmo’s achievement particularly noteworthy is the role of artificial intelligence in overcoming the challenges that have long slowed down progress in this field. The science of smells and odours is fundamentally quite complex, where hundreds of molecules interact in ways that are difficult to predict. Traditional methods of scent reproduction often fell short because they couldn’t account for the subtle nuances that differentiate between the scent of a peach versus that of a plum – as is demonstrated by the video posted by Osmo’s CEO.
However, thanks to the power of AI, Osmo has created models that can interpret and predict these complex interactions of molecules giving rise to a whole spectrum of scents, smells and odours with remarkable accuracy. According to Osmo, their Principal Odour Map doesn’t just catalogue scents, but it understands them in a multidimensional space, allowing for more precise capture and recreations of smells digitally.
That’s not all, claims Osmo. They suggest that this novel approach of digitising scent also opens the door to discovering entirely new scents and aromas that don’t exist in nature but could be created for specific purposes. Similar to how the modern pharmaceutical industry uses synthetic compounds for all sorts of things, from creating oral medical tablets to skincare lotions and beyond.
Of course, as with any groundbreaking technology, scent digitisation comes with its own set of challenges and ethical questions. While Osmo’s first proof of concept is great, it still has to overcome several technical hurdles to ensure that the reproduced scents are safe and free from allergens or harmful chemicals. Because smell and odours don’t register without being inhaled, some sort of regulatory framework will be needed to oversee the distribution and use of scent data on a commercial scale.
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Considering that our sense of smell is deeply linked to memory and emotion, privacy concern will also emerge as we go forward down this path of digital smell teleportation. How might the ability to transmit scents and odours be misused in advertising or psychological manipulation? It’s a conversation that echoes the debates we’ve had over data privacy and targeted advertising in the digital age, especially with respect to social media in the past decade.
Of course, in the early days of digital smell transfer, I don’t expect all potential applications to be serious or world-changing. As this technology matures in the coming months, be prepared to hear about pranksters sending unsavoury smells to unsuspecting recipients or the inevitable surge in “smell hacking.” Will we need antivirus software for our noses? And imagine the email spam folder of the future – not just clogging up with suspicious ecommerce offers but perhaps also emitting the scent of questionable products soliciting your business?
Imagine that day when restaurants will start sending out aromatic advertisements, filling our living rooms with the irresistible fragrance of biryani or pizza? It will surely give a whole new meaning to “sensory overload.”
While still in its infancy, Osmo’s breakthrough achievement in scent teleportation is more than just a technological milestone, but a testament to human ingenuity and the successful applications of transformative AI. In the grand tapestry of human innovation, Osmo’s successful attempt to digitise smell might just be that unexpected thread that unlocks a whole new paradigm of human-machine interaction. As we inhale the possibilities, one thing is clear – the future smells promising.
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