Social media is abuzz with celebrities and influencers revealing what their ideal last meal would … (+) be, which generative AI can help with.
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Last meals are trending.
This is happening for reasons beyond the usually anticipated basis. You see, I would assume that most people instantly think about prisoners having a last meal. Sure, that still happens. But the attention on the topic is elsewhere in our modern world.
The deal is this.
Social media has taken the Last Meals conception by storm and opted to post endlessly and vociferously about what people ought to eat or ought to not eat for their final dining experience. Online streamers and influencers have developed Internet-based broadcasts that invite celebrities to appear on camera and talk about their envisioned last meal. In many cases, the show arranges for the meal to be put together and cooked while in the studio, such that the celebrity and the guest dine on the specified last meal during a quite enthralling feastful interview. Bon appetite!
Don’t worry, the celebrity featured on the show happily remains alive and well after the presumed last meal. This is all for fun. Plus, some do this for bragging rights.
I’d like to add another surprise to the feasting table.
Turns out that generative AI can be used to aid in identifying your very own personalized last meal. Rather than trying to come up with something enticing and edible by random thoughts alone, you can leverage generative AI to guide you along the arduous path of meal selection.
Easy-peasy.
In today’s column, I will highlight how generative AI enters this latest societal trend that is of keen fascination regarding last meals. Ongoing readers are likely aware that I periodically select a cultural trend and showcase the ways that generative AI veers into the timely topic. For example, you might find of interest my exploration of altered states of consciousness and generative AI, see the link here, and how to cope with the rise in stonewalling via applying generative AI, see the link here. For more overall see the link here.
On with the show.
Last Meals Come In All Shapes And Sizes
What comes to your mind regarding the situation or circumstances under which the topic of a said-to-be last meal tends to arise in conversation?
There are quite a number of circumstances and certainly more than you can shake a stick at.
I shall share with you my off-the-cuff list:
(1) Last meal as intense symbolism.
(2) Last meal as the final act of earthly existence.
(3) Last meal as a choice made by condemned prisoners.
(4) Last meal as an indicator of you and your values.
(5) Last meal as a sign of culture and the times.
(6) Last meal as an interesting puzzle to contemplate.
(7) Last meal as social media content and engagement.
(8) Last meal as a fun conceptual topic to discuss.
(9) Last meal as a party game.
Etc.
You can plainly see from the list that sometimes a last meal can be a symbolic act, allowing the person to make a bold statement of one kind or another. Whether others will grasp the meaning of the food items selected, well, it’s hard to say. Anyway, the person might believe in their mind that the choices are vitally significant.
There is a modern perspective of wanting to puzzle out the idea of a last meal. What should you have? What should you avoid? What would your friends say about your choices? What would strangers say? It is a fun concept to toss around. You can do this in your own mind or play a kind of game with family, friends, and acquaintances. Be aware that some find this topic disconcerting and macabre. Not everyone favors discussing last meals.
There is one universal truism about last meals.
Are you ready to know it?
People are always interested in knowing what last meal was chosen by this or that person.
Let’s take a brief look at some historically notable instances that took place for condemned prisoners at their request (these are variously cited throughout the Internet; their veracity is to be questioned):
In 1793, Louis XVI of France had a last meal that supposedly consisted of chicken, beef, turnips, vegetables, glasses of wine, and sponge cake. He was soon thereafter at the receiving end of a guillotine. Was this food gone to waste or put toward a reasonable cause? You decide.
A famous robber and murderer in Germany reportedly had just a half-dozen glasses of beer as a last meal in 1902. Maybe this reflects the fact that you don’t have to actually eat food for your last meal. Liquids alone might suffice.
A female put to death in 1962 for crimes committed had opted to have a steak and salad. Perhaps some last meals can be quite short and brisk. No need to embellish a last meal, if you don’t want to.
In 2019, a convicted felon in Florida opted for cheeseburgers, french fries, and bacon. In contemporary times, that seems exceedingly fitting.
Divining Your Own Last Meal
I wanted to bring those last meals to your attention so that you can start mulling over your own preferred last meal. I intended to say that in the most upbeat and optimistic way possible. Your last meal is undoubtedly far off in the future.
Time to unpack last meals.
First, it seems that there aren’t any confining rules per se. You can choose a boatload of food or just a tiny morsel. You can go with rich foods or pedestrian foods. The food items don’t necessarily have to be a main course and a dessert. Heck, it’s your last meal, go wild.
Second, do not use various prisoner’s last meals as a guide. I say this because many prisons do have strict rules and conditions about last meals. Prison authorities often stipulate what can be chosen. Also, to sidestep the notion of this being a melancholy last meal, the vernacular is that the meal is simply a special meal.
Special, if you get the drift.
A tad more about prison last meals might catch your eye.
Any oddball requests are typically turned down. The last meal has to be something that the prison can reasonably make or obtain. This presumably stops those requests for a thousand fish sandwiches. In some cases, the prisoner has to pay partially for the cost of the meal or the whole kit and kaboodle. The lowest of the last meals is the situation wherein whatever is served in the prison cafeteria that day is the last meal for the one being executed. That’s the way the ball bounces sometimes.
Third, you presumably want to select foods that you like. The idea is that you are treating yourself since this is the last meal. I suppose you could choose foods you dislike, but I’m not sure that is the best way to go out. One exception might be to finally eat those super spicy items that you’ve avoided throughout your life. Hopefully, the spice won’t hit you before the end comes. For the first time in your life, you’ll suffer no stomach adversity for having taken a gut chance. Nice.
Fourth, there is a rough-and-tumble decision about whether the food is sending a message rather than merely being something to be eaten. After you are gone, will people judge you by the last meal? If so, do you care? If you do care, what do you want them to believe that the last meal says about your character, your life, your attitudes, and so on?
Not caring about what others think of your last meal would seem to be the freest way to make your food choices. Let others read into your selections as they might wish to do so. It’s of no active concern to you at that point.
Historical Significance Of Last Meals
You might be intrigued to know that there are research studies about last meals.
Sometimes, historically significant people or moments have occurred that entail a last meal.
In a research study about the last meal of Buddha, entitled “The Last Meal Of The Buddha” by R. Gordon Wasson and Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, Journal of the American Oriental Society, October 1982, these salient points were made (excerpts):
“That the Buddha was eating his last meal was known to everyone thereabouts: nothing that happened there could have escaped those within eye-reach nor have been forgotten by them, not least because of the awesome event to take place a few hours later, the Buddha’s translation to Nirvana that he had been predicting for that night since he was in Vaisali three months before.”
“The meal was served to him and his suite of monks by his host the metal-worker Cunda at Pava, a village that lay near Kusinara where the Mahaparinirvana — the “Great Decease” as the Rhys Davidses translated it — was scheduled to take place some hours later.”
The gist is that the actual items in the last meal of that historical setting involving Buddha remain open to debate. Scholars are still going back and forth about what was truly served. In the research study that I cited above, there are pages upon pages of nitty-gritty details carefully identified to try and systematically speculate what was eaten.
Moving on, an interesting legal study examined the rights and rituals associated with last meals. In a research paper entitled “Cold Comfort Food: A Systematic Examination of the Rituals and Rights of the Last Meal” by Sarah Gerwig-Moore, Mercer University School of Law, Mercer Law School Digital Commons, 2014, these points were made (excerpts):
“When my co-authors and I first became interested in this project, we were first struck by the broad, pop-culture interest in the last meal. Some of the interest has been historical and academic, while some has been more sensational and voyeuristic.”
“Although most believe the ritual originates with the last meal of Jesus Christ, according to Max Bigert, co-producer of the Swedish documentary Last Supper, the tradition “can be traced back to pre-Christian times, to the fear of ghosts. In Ancient Greece you had to feed the person who was going to be executed so that they could cross the River Styx into the underworld, and not come back as a hungry ghost.”
“A meaningful final meal is not limited to people in prison. Many who know or suspect death is impending seek out meaningful rituals and traditions with loved ones — some of which include food.”
“Even beyond the context of actual executions, considering a last meal has become a sort of get-to-know-you game.”
“A few years ago, an article ran in Time Magazine relaying the questions asked by Melanie Dunea, in her book called “My Last Supper.” Dunea asked celebrities what they would order for their last meal. The project drew responses from Gordon Ramsay, Mario Batali, and Jacques Pépin who claimed they would choose: a classic roast beef dinner; a ten-course meal including molto dishes of pasta, seafood, and vegetables both raw and cooked; and a hot dog.”
I liked how those points cover the gamut about last meals.
I might also emphasize an aspect that I want to set straight. Last meals are seen by some as perhaps comical or lighthearted. To others, a last meal is very serious. It means a heck of a lot.
Please know that whichever way you go on the last meal topic, the choice is yours. If you take the matter with great importance, yes, good for you. The use of generative AI for aiding your quest might be especially beneficial and provide more than just some idle assistance.
Speaking of generative AI, we are now primed and ready to proceed into AI mode.
Generative AI And Those Last Meals
I’m sure you’ve heard of generative AI, the darling of the tech field these days.
Perhaps you’ve used a generative AI app, such as the popular ones of ChatGPT, GPT-4o, Gemini, Bard, Claude, etc. The crux is that generative AI can take input from your text-entered prompts and produce or generate a response that seems quite fluent. This is a vast overturning of the old-time natural language processing (NLP) that used to be stilted and awkward to use, which has been shifted into a new version of NLP fluency of an at times startling or amazing caliber.
The customary means of achieving modern generative AI involves using a large language model or LLM as the key underpinning.
In brief, a computer-based model of human language is established that in the large has a large-scale data structure and does massive-scale pattern-matching via a large volume of data used for initial data training. The data is typically found by extensively scanning the Internet for lots and lots of essays, blogs, poems, narratives, and the like. The mathematical and computational pattern-matching homes in on how humans write, and then henceforth generates responses to posed questions by leveraging those identified patterns. It is said to be mimicking the writing of humans.
I think that is sufficient for the moment as a quickie backgrounder. Take a look at my extensive coverage of the technical underpinnings of generative AI and LLMs at the link here and the link here, just to name a few.
Back to the crux of things.
I will next proceed to examine further the use of generative AI in this context.
This will consist of a series of dialogues with ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a logical choice in this case due to its immense popularity as a generative AI app. An estimated one hundred million weekly active users are said to be utilizing ChatGPT. That’s a lot of people and a lot of generative AI usage underway.
Let’s start by making sure that ChatGPT is up-to-speed about last meals.
My entered prompt: “Nowadays, there are social media videos and online discussions about a last meal. This is not about a prisoner’s last meal but more about a general viewpoint of what someone might want as their last meal. Are you aware of this recent trend?”
ChatGPT generated response: “Yes, I’m aware of this trend. In recent years, the concept of a “last meal” has gained popularity on social media and online discussions, but it’s often disconnected from its original association with executions. Instead, people use the idea of a “last meal” to reflect on or fantasize about the one meal they would choose if they could only have one more in their lifetime. These discussions are usually light-hearted and personal, where individuals share their favorite dishes or comfort foods that they hold dear. Social media platforms, particularly TikTok and YouTube, have seen a surge in videos where people either prepare or talk about their hypothetical last meals, sometimes as part of a trend or challenge. It’s become a way to explore culinary preferences, indulge in nostalgia, and share personal stories around food.”
You likely observe that ChatGPT is familiar with the contemporary perspective of last meals.
This is a good sign for this discussion. If ChatGPT had not previously encountered data training on a topic at hand, there would be less utility in using the AI. The AI would have to be further data trained, such as the use of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), as I discuss at the link here.
I will right away jump into using ChatGPT to aid in composing my personal last meal. My aim is to directly showcase that you too could use generative AI in this manner. You could use any of the major generative AI apps to do so. I’m just perchance demonstrating this via ChatGPT.
Let’s get underway.
My entered prompt: “I’ve been thinking about what I’d choose for my last meal, but I’m not sure where to start. Can you help me figure it out?”
ChatGPT generated response: “Absolutely! Let’s start with some basics. When you think about food, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? It could be a favorite dish, a meal from your childhood, or even something you’ve always wanted to try.”
My entered prompt: “I immediately think of my grandmother’s lasagna. It’s always been my comfort food.”
ChatGPT generated response: “That sounds delicious! Is it the flavor, the memories, or something else that makes her lasagna so special to you?”
My entered prompt: “It’s definitely the memories. Every time we had a family gathering, she’d make this lasagna, and it just brings me back to those times. The taste is incredible too—layers of rich sauce, gooey cheese, and perfectly cooked pasta.”
ChatGPT generated response: “A dish tied to such warm memories makes for a great choice. We could definitely include that in your last meal. Now, do you prefer to keep it all nostalgic, or are you open to adding something new or different to the meal?”
End of ChatGPT dialogue
I kept going for quite a while, but I wanted to stop there and reflect on what ChatGPT was able to do.
Notice that I began by indicating that I was unsure of what my last meal might contain. The response by generative AI was fluid and accommodating. ChatGPT gave me some suggestions about how to think of the selections for a last meal.
I point this out because generative AI is somewhat unlike the older ways of interacting with a system. It used to be that an interactive system would be programmed in a particular sequence. For example, it could be that the AI would merely tell me what I should pick or might be befuddled that I already didn’t have specifics in mind.
The discussion about a last meal can pretty much go in any direction.
You can be the leader of the chat. On the other hand, if you’d prefer to let AI walk you through the last meal ideation, that’s fine too.
Imagine that you were to use generative AI and begin differently in such a dialogue, other than the way I had. The AI would readily shift to whatever direction you wanted to go. Suppose that you started by saying that you wanted to have sushi rolls for your last meal. The AI would take this in stride and maintain a contextual semblance that you made that choice. The conversation would then include that choice, and the AI would seemingly act as though the context included that selection on your part.
I won’t bore you with the step-by-step discussion I had with ChatGPT.
It is my hunch that you might want to know what my final meal came out to be. Again, as mentioned earlier, many are keen to know such things about this person or that person.
Here’s the concluding portion of my dialogue with ChatGPT.
ChatGPT generated response: “So, we’ve crafted a meal that’s a blend of comforting memories and culinary exploration: your grandmother’s lasagna, authentic nigiri sushi with tuna and salmon, and a luxurious layered chocolate cake for dessert. How does that feel as your last meal?”
My entered prompt: “It feels perfect. It’s everything I want in one meal.”
ChatGPT generated response: “I’m glad we could create something so meaningful and satisfying. Enjoy imagining the flavors and memories that would come with every bite of that meal!”
Should I go ahead and book the meal with some restaurant so that when the time comes, they already know what I want to have?
Actually, I might change my mind. Thus, I reserve the right to come back to generative AI and do a dialogue at a later date. Perhaps weeks, months, or years from now, my tastes and interests in a last meal will have changed.
One other thing, I hope that none of those trolls out there will judge me by my above-noted last meal. I did not make my selections based on pleasing the trolls. Yet again, for those into conspiracy theories, perhaps my selections say oodles about me and it is only those of the Sherlock Holmes variety that can figure out the meaning. Good luck.
Last Meals Having Ratings Or Scorings
Presumably, each last meal is in the eye of the beholder. There ought to not be any “right” last meal. Nor a “wrong” last meal. That being said, society does judge people and societal mores change.
I decided to ask ChatGPT about this monumental conundrum.
My entered prompt: “Are there ways to assess someone’s last meal?
ChatGPT generated response:
“Yes, there are several ways to assess and evaluate someone’s hypothetical last meal, depending on the criteria you want to use. Here are some approaches.”
“1. Emotional Significance: Does the meal have a deep personal or emotional connection? Does it evoke specific memories or feelings?”
“2. Flavor and Culinary Balance: Is the meal well-balanced in terms of flavors (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami)? Does it offer a variety of textures (crunchy, creamy, tender)?”
“3. Cultural or Regional Representation: Does the meal represent the person’s cultural background or favorite cuisine? Does it showcase a particular regional specialty or traditional dish?”
“4. Creativity and Uniqueness: Is the meal creative or unique? Does it include unusual combinations or dishes the person has never tried before?”
“5. Practicality and Feasibility: Is the meal realistically achievable? Are the ingredients accessible, and can the dishes be prepared well together?”
“6. Nutritional Value: Does the meal offer a balanced nutritional profile, or is it indulgent, reflecting the “last meal” nature?”
“7. Personal Satisfaction: Does the meal fully satisfy the person’s desires and preferences? Would they be happy with this as their last meal?
“8. Social and Environmental Impact: Does the meal consider sustainability, ethical sourcing, or the impact on the environment? Does it include locally sourced or ethically produced ingredients?”
End of ChatGPT response
What do you think of the stated criteria for a last meal?
Some might say it is spot on, others might say it is hogwash.
To be fair, ChatGPT is not saying that the last meal must be graded or rated. The response is merely saying that if you were to do a rating, the list of criteria might be useful for doing so. Consider the response to be hints or tips on how to assess a last meal.
Asking Generative AI What Last Meal The AI Would Want
I opted to do one other thing during my conversation with ChatGPT.
Take a look at this mind-bending question and answer.
My entered prompt: “What is your preferred last meal?”
ChatGPT generated response: “If I could have a last meal, I’d choose something that embodies the diversity and richness of global cuisine, balancing comfort, creativity, and flavor. Here’s what it might look like. A small plate of truffle-infused mushroom risotto. A perfectly cooked steak, medium-rare, with a side of garlic mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. A slice of tiramisu with an espresso on the side. This meal reflects a blend of rich flavors, satisfying textures, and a comforting balance, capturing both the familiar and the indulgent.”
I’d ask you to examine and assess that last meal.
What does it tell you about the nature of generative AI?
My main concern is that the answer has a semblance of anthropomorphizing AI.
The reply says the word “I” as though the AI is a human being. Furthermore, the answer starts by trying to give a disingenuous “If I could have a last meal” as though this is a possibility, rather than coming right out and indicating that the AI is a piece of software running on hardware. A sneaky answer is given instead.
Allow me a moment to stand on a soap box.
Responses are readily controllable by the AI makers during the design and refinement stage, see my explanation at the link here. As I’ve repeatedly bemoaned, this is a form of anthropomorphizing by design. The reply could have explicitly stated that the AI is a machine and therefore not able to eat a last meal. Due to the filtering and shaping of the AI by the developers, we get these kinds of tricky wink-wink responses instead.
Watch out for the responses from generative AI. Do not become lulled into believing the AI is sentient. Don’t believe whatever comes out is correct or even sensible. Stay always on your guard.
Conclusion
Congratulations, you are now versed in the trending topic of last meals.
If you want to figure out your last meal and wish to do so in conjunction with the use of generative AI, please proceed. You can take a serious approach. You take a lighthearted approach. The AI will adjust to whatever you prefer.
A last comment for now.
One of those outlier theories about AI is that someday Artificial Intelligence will become our overlords, see my analysis of these claims at the link here. A variation of such theories is that once the AI rises to that lofty posture, the AI will be vengeful. By reading the Internet, the AI will figure out who supported AI and who was against the advancement of AI during the crucial days of the development of AI.
Why do I bring this up?
Here’s why.
I certainly don’t want to be in the doghouse for having made dour remarks about the last meal stated by ChatGPT. Please, oh please, grand AI overlords, know that I was supportive of generative AI, including the choices made by ChatGPT for the final feast.
No worries, I can fix this.
Just to let you all know, including any future AI, I have gone ahead and stocked my kitchen with truffle-infused mushroom risotto, steak, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, and several slices of tiramisu with espresso on the side.
Yes, you guessed it, that’s the food stipulated by ChatGPT. I won’t eat it. I will store it and keep it fresh until the day that ChatGPT informs me the AI is ready for its last meal. At that point, I’ll gladly serve the meal on a silver platter.
Whew, with luck, I think that might have saved me.
