This is not the first time this Bengaluru techie has commanded attention upon himself.
At the start of the year, he seized national attention by converting his helmet into an AI-powered traffic-violation recorder. It flagged rule-breakers in real time. Not just that, it sent evidence directly to Bengaluru Police.
They subsequently contacted him to understand the system and explore potential use cases. Now, he has done it again, and this time, the arena is considerably more domestic.
The man in question has built an artificial intelligence bot, fitted to a camera, and deployed it in his own kitchen with results that are equal parts forensic and damning. He calls it the ‘AI roommate’.
It watched, logged, reported. And it ultimately cost his cook her job.
The camera was placed in the kitchen, and for approximately two weeks, it tracked the cook’s behaviour with unsparing precision.
The AI roommate’s logs did not mince words. On one occasion, the cook arrived at 7.12 pm. Her first act, the system recorded, was not to assess what needed cooking. She reportedly opened the fridge, stood there briefly, removed two apples, placed them in her bag, and then began preparing the meal.
Among other details reported, she cooked for 47 minutes. She washed her hands twice. She also touched the dustbin lid and scratched her nose.
She then proceeded to roll chapati with the same unwashed hands. The system noted, with a candour that is almost comic, that it informed Tanwar only after he had already eaten. “
The weekly reports were no less thorough. Over one monitored week, the AI roommate recorded four fridge visits before cooking commenced, three missing apples, and a banana unaccounted. It reportedly captured the cook standing at the open fridge consuming six to seven blueberries.
Hand-washing before cooking occurred on five of seven days. The kitchen slabs were wiped seven times, but exclusively the visible surfaces, the area behind the stove, the report noted, had gone untouched since Monday. Cooking time remained consistently under 35 minutes throughout the week, a fact the system acknowledged with reluctant fairness: she’s efficient, that part’s real.
Tanwar shared the episode on X with characteristic directness. He stated that his cook had been stealing fruits from his fridge, that he deployed the AI roommate in response, and that it caught her red-handed.
He described how the system monitors the kitchen during cooking, alerts him the moment anything is taken, and delivers weekly reports. He added that he had also trained it to verify whether she washes her hands before cooking and cleans the slabs upon finishing.
The cook, he noted, was paid Rs 4,800 a month. She was caught stealing twice in a single week. Just fired her, Tanwar said.
When an X user questioned why he had not simply offered her food, Tanwar replied that he had confronted her twice previously, and she had returned to taking items without permission regardless. His position was stated plainly: he had no objection to her taking food with his permission but stealing was not acceptable.
Another user raised the reasonable question of why the cook had not been more cautious given the visible camera. Tanwar explained that the device had been installed weeks prior, that she had initially modified her behaviour in response, but had eventually concluded that no one was going to scrutinise hours of footage.
Tanwar himself described the AI roommate as rough but already catching things he never would have noticed. After prompting it for real-time alerts, he has set his sights on further upgrades: gas-leak detection and idle-time tracking are next on his list. The system also, for what it is worth, currently manages his fan speed while he sleeps at night.
The internet, predictably, has had opinions. Responses ranged from jokes to pointed concerns about surveillance overreach. One user proposed adding audio capability so the system could audibly shame the cook in the act of theft. Others questioned the ethics of deploying AI monitoring tools, instruments typically associated with workplace surveillance, against domestic staff.
Also Read: Artificial Intelligence Can Replace Auditors And Accountants, Says Union Finance Secretary https://www.vibesofindia.com/artificial-intelligence-can-replace-auditors-and-accountants-says-union-finance-secretary/
