What we smell is linked to the structure of chemical molecules in the air, but many subjective factors influence it John Howard/Getty Images
Google has used an artificial intelligence to produce a map that relates smells to the structures of molecules. It is as reliable as a human in describing the odour of a substance and the researchers behind the work say it is a crucial step towards digitising odours.
The hope is that the AI model could eventually be used to identify new scents for fragrances and flavours for food science, or come up with chemicals to repel organisms…
