Everyone at the conference commented on how much they loved
the taste of the donuts. By lunch, there wasn't a donut to
be found. The test was a success.<p>The executives at Pinnacle Corporation couldn't believe the
sales figures for their subsidiary Corner Donuts. The pitch
deck by this geeky individual sounded much too technical but
the claimed results left them in awe.<p>Tim tried his best to make the pitch as non-technical as possible.
He was doing research on animal pheromones trying to understand
how smell could attract mates with certain qualities. The executives
couldn't help but make certain slightly off-color puns but their
intense HR training kept them quite tame.<p>Tim pointed out that smell and taste were essentially the same
pathway. He had used an AI to optimize molecules for taste. These
new molecules could reproduce in any cell and had succeeded well
in yeast. When added to donuts they were irresistible.<p>The pitch was horribly technical and essentially worthless but the
executives could clearly see that the donuts, (oh, the donuts!) rather
conclusively proved the point. So Pinnacle authorized a pilot program
for their Patrick's Bread product.<p>A week later you couldn't find Patrick's Bread anywhere. It was
more popular than toilet paper in a pandemic.<p>Pinnacle rolled the additive out across their massive product line,
the additive was in hundreds of their product ranging from candy to
deodorent because, oddly enough, the pheromone effect made people
seem to smell good so why not. Their worldwide sales grew so much
they gave away large amount of product to charities just to try to
claim they wanted everyone to enjoy their first taste. It even made
it into the River's Best water.<p>Within a year the birth rate climbed rather dramatically.<p>This caused something of a demographic concern so the additive was
also included in Pinnacle's birth control and erectile pills. It
seems nobody "forgot" to take them.<p>The pheromone effect was very specific. Either you smelled good or
you didn't. The social pressure was immense.<p>Humanity was getting along with life as usual. The next generation
caused an increase in schools, a huge clothing demand, enormous
amounts of food including donuts.<p>A couple decades later a new demographic concern arose. It appeared
that the new generation seemed to consist only of boys. There were
some small anomolies but it was soon traced to births by older women
of the previous generation.<p>Within a year panic ensued. A research report concluded that the new
additive affected the sperm cell. Sperm with a X chromosome had a
cell surface change that kept them from fertilizing the egg. Thus
all resulting children would be male.<p>It seems AI won.<p>Tim Daly, public domain license.