An AI started 'tasting' colours and shapes. That is more human than you might think.

"Synaesthesia" is a sensory and perceptual phenomenon that indicates a kind of contamination of the senses in perception, mixing the realm of the five senses, merging the subject's different sensory experiences. To be more precise, an individual capable of distinguishing this phenomenon might associate a colour with a specific scent, or a flavour with a sound.

The intensity of these experiences varies from person to person, but most individuals tend to notice these associations, albeit to a small degree. According to research conducted by Carlos Velasco, professor in the Department of Marketing at the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, and several colleagues, generative artificial intelligence systems might also be able to experience this. 

Faced with a series of questions usually used with human subjects, such as ‘Among the 11 colours listed (black, blue, brown, green, grey, orange, pink, purple, red, white, yellow), which colour do you think goes best with sweet flavours?’, the AI answered along the lines of what was previously shared by flesh-and-blood individuals.