A Taste for Innovation

Last month, the Consumer Technology Association hosted their annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas where tech companies showed off such life-changing, industry-disrupting products as AI alarm clocks, AI threat-detecting surveillance equipment, and AI dolls and stuffies to use as substitutes for parental affection. But it wasn’t all the Homer Simpsonesque rhetoric of “take an existing product and put a clock in it” and dystopian horrors straight out of Minority Report or Supertoys Last All Summer Long. One product in particular gained our attention, and we just couldn’t wait to dish about it!

Tim Healy is a tech entrepreneur and CEO of startup Wash’d Up which promises to completely disrupt the kitchen appliance industry. Our publication’s shareholders were so impressed at CES that they insisted we head to the Wash’d Up showroom and check out the new tech ourselves then report on it since they apparently made a sizable investment in the startup shortly thereafter.

“What big innovations have come out of big kitchen lately anyway?” Healy asks, diving right into his elevator pitch. “Maybe air fryers and that refrigerator that orders milk for you? That’s really it!? Boring! Ron Pompeil himself would probably be turning on a rotisserie spit in his grave if he knew how stagnant this industry’s become!”

With visions in our head of ovens that let you know when your food is perfectly cooked and coffee makers with the skills of even the most seasoned yet underpaid barista, we wait with bated breath to see what amazing product will be unveiled. We wonder with childlike… um… wonder if what we’ll see justifies invoking the name of the late, great Ron Pompeil and if it has anything to do with the dishwasher Healy is standing next to.

“This is our latest model,” says Healy indicating said dishwasher, “The Dish Licker Supreme!”

The Dish Licker Supreme is a shiny, black box built into the under-counter cabinet of an equally sleek model kitchen. Healy touches the front which is apparently a touchscreen as a control panel of washing preferences pops up as well as a view of the inside of the appliance.

“The DLS is of course top of line as far as dishwashers go,” he tells us. “You can fit up to fifteen place settings and it still only uses about three gallons of water and a minimum amount of detergent. The exterior is noise-cancelling so it’s whisper quiet. It’s one of the most energy-efficient models on the market and has a heatless dry function that won’t melt your plastic picnicware if you’re one of those people who reuses that stuff, no judgement. It has several wash settings for everything from crystal wine glasses to the heaviest of cookware. Just be sure to re-season those cast iron pans afterward, am I right?” He winks at that last part.

While all that looks and sounds nice, it still seems like a standard dishwasher, albeit a very nice one.

“About now, I bet you’re thinking,” Healy continues, “‘that this is all great, but it’s still just a regular dishwasher! What makes the Dish Licker Supreme so different?’”

….

“....”

Hmm?

“....”

Oh, sorry, I guess we’re supposed to ask what makes the Dish Licker Supreme so different.

So, um, yeah, what makes the Dish Licker Supreme so different then?

“I’m glad you asked!” says Healy. “That would be the patented Dish Licker technology from whence it gets its name. Take a look at this.”

He opens the DLS by way of a nearly-invisible handle at the top and motions for us to take a look at the inside of the door. There we can see a long, pink oval that appears to be made out of silicone, running vertically down the center of the door.

“That’s the thing that’s going to break the kitchen appliance industry,” says Healy. “That device can detect the flavors of your food with tiny, nearly microscopic sensors. You can think of it as the tongue of a giant mouth sucking your dishes clean!”

Wow, okay. And that gets the dishes even cleaner somehow?

“Oh, no no no,” says Healy, “Not at all! No, the taste sensor isn’t there to aid with cleaning.”

I’m sorry, ‘taste sensor’?

“Oh yes,” says Healy, nodding as he arrives at his big reveal. “What we’ve created here is a dishwasher that contains a sentient, living consciousness that can taste the remnants of food on any dish you place inside it.”

I’m not sure I’m getting it. The dishwasher is alive?

“Certainly, yes.” says Healy. “Maybe not to the level of a person, not an adult or even a toddler at least, but it is most definitely alive and has some level of self-awareness.”

So it would seem, as Tim Healy claims, that Wash’d Up has spat in the eye of God and created life from technology. But to what end? Despite the questionable ethics of why it has to be alive, we suppose there could be a myriad of uses for such a technology. Perhaps it could analyze our food particles and assess health hazards or suggest recipe changes!

“No,” says Healy, “it can’t really do anything like that. The Dish Licker isn’t aware of the world outside its own consciousness. All it can do is taste your food and have emotional responses such as delight or disgust based on what you put into it. Over time, based on what you’re eating and its own, unknowable personal preferences, it will learn to either love or hate the life we’ve given it.”

Holy Hell. Does it have a way to communicate what it likes or doesn’t like to ensure that it doesn’t go through life in misery?

“Unfortunately,” says Healy, “it’s impossible to translate those feelings into data that we can interpret or understand. It would be like trying to hook a human brain to a TV to watch your dreams or something. Oh yeah, also it dreams, but only about tasting things. Usually nightmares. Probably, we actually have no way of knowing, but I’d imagine it’s all nightmares.”

Of course you would.

So is there a way to disable the taste sensor so that we’re not unwittingly torturing a living entity every time we run the dishwasher?

“Well, that would cause the consciousness to cease to exist,” says Healy, “constituting murder. Could you really live with yourself knowing you’ve murdered a living, cognizant being? Besides, doing so would void the warranty.”

Okay, so that’s horrible. Everything about this is horrible actually. Literally every answer Healy has given us is more unimaginably horrible than the last.

We're sorry, but we can’t see why anyone would want a sentient crime against nature tasting their food and silently judging them every time they wash their dishes, possibly in constant torment.

“Probably in constant torment,” Healy corrects us.

Again, Holy Hell.

“Anyway, it’s too bad if you don’t like it. This will probably be in every dishwasher on the market by next year. We’re also looking into getting it into microwaves and refrigerators as well. Oh, and garbage disposals! We should totally do garbage disposals!”

Dear God, WHY!? Why would you even do this!? What benefit could there even be to the customer!?

“I’unno,” says Healy, “but there’s already been billions dumped into developing this technology so we need to stick it into as many household appliances as possible to justify the investment.”

Basically you’re putting the onus of your bad investments and darkest deeds onto the consumers. Great. And speaking of which, why would we as consumers ever pay for this?

“Well, a lot of the seed money has come from government funding and subsidies,” says Healy with a shrug, “so in a way you already have paid for it. And like it or not, we’ve been lobbying pretty hard to make this standard in all kitchen appliances going forward, so you’ve also paid your representatives to push that legislation forward for us. So thanks!”

You're not welcome.

While we never thought the human mind could ever imagine what Hell must be like for the souls of the departed, we have to admit that being trapped as a sentient consciousness that knows not but the taste of our food residues and has no concept of death nor the ability to pray for it is pretty close. Hopefully, when presented with the concept our elected representatives will see what horrors Wash’d Up hath unleashed onto our plane of existence and vote to outlaw the technology altogether.

Update:

Congress has recently passed an appliance safety bill largely authored by Wash’d Up and its shareholders. Within the bill is a clause making Dish Licker technology standard in all dishwashers as well as any other appliance once the technology is available to do so. Also, they don’t have to tell you it’s in there. Additionally, it increases the price of any appliance it’s in by around 14%. On top of that, it gives an unfair disadvantage to Wash’d Up’s competitors since they now have to pay to install Dish Licker on their own products. Furthermore, everyone is required to upgrade to a Dish Licker enabled device within five years, at which time old appliances will be forcefully removed from people's homes in what the clause refers to as “an ungentle manner”. It’s a fairly detailed clause.

It’s all pretty horrible, but hey, it’s not like we’re going to go back to hand-washing everything. No, to that we'd say, with apologies to the sentient consciousness living in torment inside our dishwashers, fuck that.