For its next trick, IBM's supercomputer Watson will cook you dinner.

Visitors to the annual 10-day SXSW festival in Austin, Texaswhich kicks off todaywill get a chance to taste recipes algorithmically concocted by the brainiac machine.

According to a report by the BBC, attendees can vote on Twitter via the #IBMFoodTruck hashtag for the daily dishes they most want Watson to cook up. Then visit the food truck on the event floor to have a taste.

With access to two databasesone with tens of thousands of existing dishes, the other compiling flavor compounds and thousands of ingredientsWatson will root through recipes and ingredients to create its own medleys of flavors.

Of course, the computer itself can't batter, stuff, fry, or sear the food; instead, a group of chefs from the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) will be on hand at SXSW to prepare the dishes.

"An important aspect of this research is pairing human creativity with machine creativity to create the best possible outcomes and results," Florian Pinel, senior software engineer at IBM Watson Group, told the BBC. "We want chefs to see our system as a useful assistant that magnifies and accelerates their abilities, and to do things they never could have done before."

IBM did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment, but Pinel tipped fare like an Italian grilled lobster with saffron, tomato, pumpkin, mint, olives, orange, and bacon"something that we would never have thought of putting all together," he told the BBC.

Another delicacy: the Baltic apple pie, which features apple, blueberries, apricots, ginger, pork, garlic, and onion.

The purpose of this seemingly bizarre experiment is not to confuse your taste buds, but rather to prove that computers are for more than simple input and output; they also have a creative side.

IBM has more planned for Watson than a stint as a gourmet chef. The computer company recent announced plans to invest $1 billion in development and research within its newly formed Watson Group, which focuses on bringing Watson-powered cloud-based apps and services to the public.

The 2,000-strong team is tasked with taking the supercomputer mainstream in the fields of healthcare, financial services, retail, travel, and telecommunications. And that's just what this new culinary talent could do: Pinel told the BBC that Watson provides an opportunity to tackle obesity, malnutrition, and hunger around the world.

"By using computational creativity technologies to analyze the chemical compounds and ingredients, food professionals can identify new recipes and pairings that are not only tasty and healthy, but also efficient to produce," he said.

IBM is even getting third-party developers involved, last month challenging creative builders to submit their best ideas for how to leverage Watson's talents. Ultimately, three winning teams will be selected to receive IBM mentoring support and sandbox access to build the next Watson-powered app and bring it to market.

For more, check out Beyond Jeopardy: Watson Up Close, as well as all the news from SXSW and the slideshow above.

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