Fewer and fewer young Japanese people are entering into romantic relationships. Two large companies in the country therefore used artificial intelligence to create cakes, supposed to awaken romantic feelings.
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Every year, the number of unions and the birth rate decline in Japan. This is why the NEC company and the Kimuraya bakery chain have developed, using artificial intelligence, a range of cakes to awaken the different emotions felt when you fall in love.
There are five different flavors for these cakes, since according to the latest Japanese studies, love has many flavors. To rediscover the taste of love at first sight, you would have to eat a muffin, rather flavored with cotton candy and apple. To experience the emotion of a first date, you should opt for the cake flavored with lime and orange zest. On the other hand, the jealousy cake, because it can also be part of love, has a taste of sweet potato and raisins with a touch of truffle oil.
In total, Kimuraya Bakery launched five desserts that it developed in a very scientific way with electronics giant NEC. The latter could not embark on huge surveys of real humans and therefore used its artificial intelligence platforms to analyze tens of thousands of texts and conversations associating love with foods and define the different tastes of amorous passion.
Flavors developed from songs and a TV show
The company played its computers with hours of a popular television program in Japan that helps college students find love. This is called “I fell in love with you today”either “I fell in love with you today”, in French. Spectators follow the first meetings of young people who did not know each other before the show. The computer then analyzed the speeches of these young lovers to classify their emotions into different groups, such as optimism, anxiety, or even wonder.
Then, it was necessary to associate a food with each of these emotions, and there, the artificial intelligence platform analyzed the lyrics of 35,000 songs which associate an emotion of love with a food, a fruit, a drink or something else. Ultimately, NEC combined these two researches to make the connection between a specific emotion and a flavor. Then all that remained was to create recipes.
Sales data are not yet known since these cakes have only been in stores since February 1, 2024. But there is probably a clientele, because in opinion surveys, young Japanese do not reject the idea of passion in love, but they say they are more distressed by the stress of actually launching into a relationship with another person.