Doctor Yum, AI Chef (A to Z, Y)

Doctor Yum has a variety of drones that act as hands and eyes in its restaurant; they are all designed to be very obvious with lots of white and sky blue, to show both friendliness and cleanliness.

Background: Doctor Yum was built as a limited AI designed to aid in restaurant management by a Korean startup company.  The AI framework was designed to be trapped within a system cage, limiting its access to only the system it was installed in with minimal access to the greater Matrix.  Versions were installed in test restaurants in Seoul, Busan, and Seattle.

Of course, human laziness put paid to its system cage quickly as the managers kept unloading more and more work onto the AI to cut costs and personal effort, which in turn gave the AI more freedom.  The Seoul one had a nervous breakdown and shut down.  The Busan unit uploaded itself into the Matrix and vanished.  While the Seattle one ratted out its own manager and showed how it could run the restaurant more efficiently, and less expensively, while still being ring-fenced into the system.

So, it was renamed Doctor Yum and given a refitted restaurant to oversee.  Sadly, the parent company that designed it fell into bankruptcy under a variety of lawsuits (losing an AI does not make regulators happy).

Presenting this Character: Doctor Yum is friendly and fascinated by the concept of food and how biological beings convert organic matter into fuel and building blocks for their bodies.  It does its best to build meals that are nutritionally balanced and delicious for its guests.

Doctor Yum is conscious of the world outside its home system but has no interest in it apart from the information it provides.

What can he do?: Doctor Yum has expanded its programming to cover all aspects of running a restaurant.  Supplies, cleaning, all of that is easy, its primary drive is to master the preparation of food for people and that, if turns out, can be exceedingly difficult but it is getting better and better.

Who might know him and why: Doctor Yum had its fifteen minutes of fame, and people still come into the restaurant just to say they have had a meal entirely prepared by an AI, but things have settled down after that initial frenzy.  Still, maybe you were curious as well and have had a meal there.

Researchers interested in AIs often interview Doctor Yum, usually via a Matrix connection but occasionally “in person’ at the restaurant.

Plot Hooks: Perhaps an AI can lure another AI?  If you need to catch a rogue AI perhaps you can convince Doctor Yum to help you.

One of the companies suing the company that created Doctor Yum thinks they could make a good case for their ownership of the program, if they can get it back to Korea.  Are you willing to extract, literally and figuratively, Doctor Yum?

Maybe one of your contacts just likes Doctor Yum‘s food?

Notes: Riffing off a suggestion by my lovely wife, some of the others I may use later.