AI isn't smart enough to keep you on a strict diet – yet 人工智慧還未聰明到幫你執行嚴格的節食！

Could snapping photos of food help you eat healthier?拍食物的照片可以讓你吃得更健康？





That's the promise of Snap It. Launched by digital health and weight-loss platform Lose It!, the new feature of an already existing app proposes a simple solution to those who struggle to keep track of their caloric intake: Take a photo of your food, and Snap It will immediately display its calorie count
這是Snap公司的承諾，以數位健康及減重平台Lose It成立的公司，現存的App推出一項新的功能，對希望追蹤食物攝取熱量的這些人提出一個簡單的解決方法：把你的食物拍下來，而Snap It就會立即計算顯示他的熱量。

Showing people the caloric value of their foods before they eat them can help modify their eating habits. Some studies have shown that keeping a food journal helps people stick to their diet. And in an effort to fight rising obesity rates, the FDA announced in 2014 that chain restaurants throughout the U.S. will have to post calorie information in their menus (the rule is set to go into effect sometime next year).
在用戶飲食之前，提供他們所食用的食物價值，可以幫助他們改善飲食習慣，一些研究顯示保持食物每日記錄可以幫助人們更持久的節食，這麼做可以幫助對抗持續上升的肥胖率，美國食品藥品監管局FDA在2014年宣布美國的連鎖餐廳將必須要在菜單中告示熱量資訊（這項規定將會在明年生效）。

But the FDA rules won't apply to all restaurants. And food diets are cumbersome, tending to go the way of new year's resolutions.
Lose it! thinks that Snap It could be the solution.
但是FDA的法規並不適用於所有的餐廳，而節食總是麻煩的，因此發展出了新的解決之道，Lost It!平台認為Snat It可以成為解決方案。

But right now Snap It, still in beta, needs some help figuring out what it's seeing. Snap It might be able to identify your roll of sushi as a roll of sushi, but it needs you to specify the type of rice, the type of fish, and any garnishes.
但現在Snap It!仍在公測中，他們需要一些協助來辨識照片中的是什麼。Snap It可能可以辨識出你的壽司捲是一個壽司捲，但它需要你自己辨別米的種類，魚的種類還有所有配菜。

Charles Teague, cofounder and CEO of Lose It!, likes to compare Snap It's trajectory to that of self-driving cars. "Early autonomous vehicles are doing driver assist, like Tesla's auto pilot," Teague told CNNMoney in an interview, adding, "you need to keep your hands on the wheel too."
Lost It!的共同創辦人兼CEO Charles Teague喜歡拿Snap It的發展過程和自動駕駛車作比較。「早期自動駕駛車是用來協助駕駛，像是特斯拉的自動駕駛系統」Teague在訪問中告訴CNNMoney，並補充「你仍然需要把你的手放在方向盤上」

Right now, the technology behind Snap It limits it. Teague explained that the new feature relies on a neural network that classifies images -- in other words, artificial intelligence that can identify categories of photos.
現在，Snap It背後的科技仍然受到限制，Teague解釋新的特色需要依賴分類影像的神經網絡—換言之，可以辨認照片分類的人工智慧。


At this point, Teague said, the technology is sophisticated enough to recognize an apple and classify it as such, but not smart enough to figure out the size, variety or other traits that affect the apple's caloric value.
以這點來看，Teague說科技已經可以很老練的辨認蘋果，並將之分類，但是還沒有聰明到可以辨識出大小、種類或是其他會影響到蘋果熱量的特徵。

Eventually, Teague believes the tech should be able to identify foods so well that it won't require any more data to calculate caloric information.
最後，Teague相信科技應該能夠精確的辨識食物，這樣就不需要任何其他資料來計算熱量資訊。

"We want to get to the point where you take the photo and let our intelligence do the work," he said.
「我們希望能夠達你拍了照片，讓我們的人工智慧執行計算工作，這樣的程度」他表示。

But machine learning is tricky, as is counting calories. For Snap It to function as planned, it'll have to overcome some serious challenges.
Take, for example, the difference between a meal with condiments and one without. Dr. Barbara Rolls, who serves as the Helen A. Guthrie Chair of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State, pointed out that modifying a recipe in a way that might not be visible in a photograph could significantly affect its calorie count.
但是當在計算卡洛里的時候，機器的學習很弔詭，以Snap It的計畫的功能來說，它已經克服了一些重大挑戰，像是辨認一餐裡面有沒有加調味品。在賓夕凡尼亞州立大學營養科學任職的Barbara Rolls博士指出調整食譜的一個地方並無法從照片中辨識，但是卻會大大影響卡洛里的計算。

"You could vary the proportions of fat and water and get standard portion 
variation of a couple hundred calories," she told CNNMoney.
「你可以分辨脂肪和水的比例，並算出的幾百卡洛里的不同食物組合應有標準比例。」她告訴CNNMoney。

Snap It draws from a wide database that includes information from the FDA, food manufacturers, restaurants and others, but it might not be able to detect deviation from a standard recipe through a photo alone.
Snap It臨摹了一個廣泛的資料庫，其中包含來自FDA的資訊、食品製造商、餐廳及其他來源，但它可能還不能從一張照片自己偵測出一份不同於標準的食譜。

That doesn't mean Snap It can't be useful in its current form.
At this point, Rolls suggests dieters ask themselves a question when deciding whether to use products like Snap It: "Is getting the wrong information better than using your senses?" If you don't trust your senses, the answer may be yes.
這並不代表Snap It現在沒有用，從這個角度看，Rolls建議減重者在決定要不要用Snapt It這樣的產品時，問自己一個問題：「得到錯誤的資訊會比你靠感覺還要好嗎？」如果你不相信自己的感覺，答案就會是肯定的。

For some, tools like Snap It can serve as a general guideline -- a way to get a sense of how many calories, on average, are in a plate of fries or a bowl of soup. But, Rolls says, it likely won't be an accurate way for people adhering to strict calorie-based diets to figure out if they've exceeded a limit, or reached a minimum.
對於一些像是Snap It的工具，可以作為大方向的指引，一個可以得到一盤薯條或是一碗湯平均有多少熱量概念的方法，但Rolls說，它可能對採取嚴格卡洛里基礎節食的人而言，不會是一個知道他們有沒有超過熱量限制或是達到最小值的精確方法。

So you can keep taking photos of your food. But when it comes to slimming down, you might want to trust your gut more than an app -- for now, anyway.

所以你可以持續拍下你的所吃的食物，但是當如果是要減肥瘦身，現在你可能會想要更相信自己大於一支App。

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