Domino's Has a Ridiculous Tech Solution for the Biggest Problem With Pepperoni Pizza

COLE SALADINO/THRILLIST
COLE SALADINO/THRILLIST

On the list of pizza concerns, plating is pretty low. You're coating a hunk of dough in cheese, sauce, and meat; molecular gastronomy this is not. But even as utilitarian a meal as pizza can be ruined by uneven distribution. Poorly spread pepperoni is, after all, a real problem. This is so serious an issue that Domino's is taking futuristic measures to ensure that our carb bombs are as pretty as possible.

Enter the Pizza Checker. This state-of-the-art presentation verifier takes a photo of a pizza via a camera above the cutting board (which is not yet called the pie in the sky, but probably will be). That image is compared to a handsome, ideal pie, and artificial intelligence weighs in on whether it's worthy of the Domino's name. The store manager then gets the results, and the customer can also be notified that their pizza will need to be remade.

For now, this miracle of human ingenuity will only appear in one store in Australia for a trial period, but it's part of a broader move to automate quality control in Domino's stores. Its panopticon-esque reign is set to spread across Australia in 2018, and Domino's "has struck a 12-month global exclusivity agreement with the developer of the technology, Dragontail Systems, to roll it out at stores overseas," according to news.com.au. This means we too could soon live in a country run by a faceless, pizza quality-control overlord.

Dragontail Systems also uses Google AI software as a jumping point for the machine's learning, so these will be as sophisticated as machines related to pizza get. In 2016, Dragontail Systems implemented this technology at a stand-alone pizza business, but this will be its first major chain in what it plans as a broader movement toward automated quality control in the food industry.

I for one welcome our pizza overlords.

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James Chrisman is a News Writer at Thrillist who sometimes wonders if he too is a faceless machine. Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow him on Twitter @james_chrisman2.