Too Hawt to Handle: How A.I. is lighting a fire beneath one family business

Photo courtesy of Shekeib Shaffiey

Artificial intelligence has been called the final frontier of technology. If you’re a little creeped out by the idea that robots may soon consciously be making eye contact with us, you’re not alone. AI is already pervasive. It’s in our healthcare, our social media algorithms, our streaming services, and now, it’s at our local farmers’ markets. But put those dystopian premonitions on hold! It turns out that AI can also be delicious.

Brothers Shekeib and Shohaib Shaffiey created Bayesian Hot Sauce with the help of Bayesian AI software. Shohaib developed the algorithm, which tweaks Shekeib’s hot sauce recipes to create precise flavor profiles. They’re passionate about Bayesian AI, specifically because it’s people-centered.

“You have to have somebody guiding the AI,” Shekeib says. “Otherwise, it’s just like a wrench sitting in a toolbox.”

Shohaib echoes this idea, emphasizing while AI can feel eerily human, it’s just another machine.

“It’s just math and statistics,” he says. “It’s not anything miraculous. I think it’ll be seen as more of a calculator in the future.”

Shekeib’s background is in industrial and organizational psychology, but when his daughter was born, he became a stay-at-home dad. This gave him more time to focus on hobbies—one of which has now grown into a family business.

“I was always into hot sauce as a kid because I’m Middle Eastern, and my dad would eat raw peppers with every meal. Just raw Serranos,” Shekeib says, laughing. “My brother would look at him like he was Superman because he was eating lava.”

Shekeib began experimenting with his first hot sauce recipes in his late teens and early 20s. Then, Shohaib received his master’s degree in computer science from Washington University in St. Louis, and he began using AI in his daily work.

“My brother was doing research on degenerative eye diseases, and he was predicting which patients would have these diseases,” Shekeib says. “He was talking about my hot sauce and saying, ‘Well, maybe I can help you predict what ingredients and amounts would be good.’”

Shekeib Shaffiey with bayesian sauce. // Photo courtesy of Shekeib Shaffiey

The brothers start by limiting the range of each ingredient (for example, one to two tablespoons of salt). Then Shohaib inputs the information into his computer, which refines the amount. They rate the sauce on a scale of one to 10 and feed the rating back into the program. Shohaib’s algorithm assists as they tweak the ingredient amounts to get the taste closer to the desired rating.

“We’ve done that over 50 times for our first hot sauce, the jalapeño lime one,” Shekeib says. “It’s been heavily optimized, and I think we’re at the point where we’re going to be changing micrograms of salt to get it even more optimized.”

The jalapeño lime sauce includes only five ingredients for a simple, straightforward heat that spices up any meal, from tacos,

Art by Cassondra Jones

to burgers, to pizza. A whiff of the habanero pineapple quickly reveals that it’s more intense—A bonfire as opposed to a few candles. A few drops are enough for palates used to milder fare.

When customers buy a bottle of Bayesian Hot Sauce, they’re encouraged to give the Shaffieys feedback so they can adjust the ingredient balances for the next batch. The ratings are then fed into the algorithm, and the process begins all over again.

“The AI world is coming,” Shekeib says. “It’s hard to resist now that all these big companies are using it. How can we involve the human more so it’s not only AI? I think Bayesian optimization is a perfect answer for that. Our hot sauce is proof of concept.”

Without the help of AI to tweak the recipes and design promotional materials, such as the bottles’ labels, Shekeib estimates that he would have spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get the business up and running. AI has helped him speed up the launch process and cut through red tape so he can instead focus on what matters: the sauce.

“I’d like to keep going to the farmers’ markets and getting face-to-face with people. I feel like I get to explain what I think about AI and how this is used as a tool, and not such an end-all-be-all of human work,” Shekeib says. “It can be useful to even your average person who has no background in computer science or anything math or AI-related.”

Shohaib’s work is largely behind the scenes, but that doesn’t mean that he’s less passionate about the business or the people-first applications of AI.

“It was actually my brother’s expertise that drew me to pick him as the person to use AI with,” Shohaib says. “It’s his intuition that I believed in the most. He has the right idea of what people want. This AI software was just guiding the process. Maybe it gave him some ideas, but really it was him that guided the AI as well. I have a very close relationship with my brother. Anything he’s done, he’s been great at. Now he’s a wonderful father. That’s the genesis of why I chose this venture because I believed in him so much.”

Bayesian Hot Sauce is pending FDA approval, so orders cannot yet be placed through the website at bayesiansauce.com. However, you can fill out the contact form to get notified when the FDA’s blessing is secured. In the meantime, you can find the Shaffieys at Brookside Farmers Market or on Instagram @bayesiansauce.