Grandboys, an AI Story
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.
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.
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.
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.
A week later you couldn't find Patrick's Bread anywhere. It was more popular than toilet paper in a pandemic.
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.
Within a year the birth rate climbed rather dramatically.
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.
The pheromone effect was very specific. Either you smelled good or you didn't. The social pressure was immense.
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.
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.
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.
It seems AI won.
Tim Daly, public domain license.