(Noema) – Scent is a vital component of human intelligence. But in our quest to advance artificial intelligence, nobody seems to care about it.

Between 2015 and 2025, the number of research papers on artificial olfaction remained stagnant, while papers on machine vision, language processing and computer audio rose by orders of magnitude. Big AI conferences like NeurIPS, ICLR and ICML have shown little interest in integrating olfaction into the next generation of models. Most leaders in the field appear convinced that achieving human-level AI is a question of improving skills like abstract reasoning, planning, language use and problem-solving — things that typically do not depend on sensory capabilities like smell. Even in the design of humanoid and canine robots, as well as other embodied AI systems, it’s rarely considered.

But olfaction is not an optional add-on for developing human-level artificial intelligence, according to a growing body of research. In fact, it could very well be fundamental and irreplaceable. (Read More)