One of the go-to arguments AI boosters make is its ability to innovate in ways the human mind could never think of. Japanese snack maker Meiji puts this to the test with a new treat allegedly utilizing this technology to...combine two popular products together. The brain reels at this breakthrough.

The tongue-twister-titled "Kitakita no Konokono Yamasato" brings together the long-running chocolate biscuits Kinoko no Yama (they look like mushrooms) and Takenoko no Sato (resembles bamboo shoots). The central hook to this is the long-running idea that certain people prefer one of these cookies to the other despite basically being the same thing except in a different shape. This tension featured in an earlier ad campaign where Meiji rolled out its "Kinotake Mother" AI to determine which one someone would like based off of an uploaded photo. 

Let's forget all this Silicon Valley hoo-ha for a second and focus on this hybrid sweets physical construction. Meiji mixes the cracker stem of the mushroom-shaped ones with the cookie of the takenoko-looking offer, and encases it all in a brick of chocolate. 

I don't know if AI was really needed to figure out "two great tastes, together" (or function as the marketing hook here). Yet the end result is tasty, featuring two types of crispy crunch adding texture to the sweet flavor around it. Maybe this is the best case scenario for an AI-assisted tomorrow.