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There are multiple widely replicated common crappy menu styles already. If anything AI generated menus are likely to lift the quality floor. I recall in partic

by vidarh 10d ago

There are multiple widely replicated common crappy menu styles already. If anything AI generated menus are likely to lift the quality floor. I recall in particular when I first moved to London and realised you could identify low quality Italian restaurants by whether they had the same laminated plastic dessert menu from some distributor of ready made desserts... The step up was when they'd cut and pasted parts of that menu design into their own template... And keep in mind we notice the bad examples, because they stand out. They'll fade out of public consciousness as people get better at getting better output out of them, but they're not likely to disappear - menus have clearly been a low priority for a certain subset of places pretty much forever. If anything, it reliably signals "cheap".

Apocryphon 10d ago
There's a recent meme of AI-generated representations of food being notably unappetizing, even grotesque and repulsive: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-restaurant-food-images https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-restaurant-food-images
phil21 10d ago
I think there is a big difference between using AI generated food pictures, vs. taking real pictures of your food and using AI to create a menu/poster. The former is both weird, creepy most of the time, and false advertising. The latter is as you say - the state of the current status quo. I can tell that it's AI, but honestly it's just replacing low-effort human crud for low-effort AI crud. Doesn't bother me at all, it's actually a great use for the technology imo.
- quietsegfault 10d ago
  What about the pictures of Chinese food above the counter vs. the actual food you get? There has ALWAYS been a big difference between advertisements and menus and what the food really looks like.
  - phil21 10d ago
    Funnily enough, I was thinking of exactly those photos when writing my comment. I never found them to be all that misrepresentative - that they took a photo from their family friend of their father taken 20 years ago for the same dish they are making me and have it on some faded menu board behind the counter is... honestly pretty close. It's the fake AI generated "shine" I guess that is the difference to me. Obviously totally made up, not real food, and made to look pretty. It's mostly the uncanny valley. Both are indeed false advertising, but the AI generated ones are so obviously made up and not real it's a little off putting to me. Wouldn't really stop me from ordering if I were already there, but it might make me order from their competitor if I were on Uber Eats or whatnot.
  - fd45e 10d ago
    And that is true.. but guess what? We should be inventing technologies that DIMINISH and punish this behaviour. But we ain't. We are doing the exact opposite. Nice. The best we have is Google reviews lmao.
  - sillyfluke 9d ago
    My usual Chinese spots have pretty terrible food pictures, seemingly taken as an afterthought with no effort given to make the food look more appetizing at all. So kind of the opposite of false advertising.
- vidarh 9d ago
  As long as it's visibly AI, I don't think it's meaningfully false advertising. The bigger problem with respect to false advertising will be when even the low-effort AI crud is plausible enough that people don't recognise it.
fd45e 10d ago
"If anything, it reliably signals "cheap"" And this my friends is closer to what GI is than solving Navier-Stokes. I know many... lets say 'intellecutals' here can't fathom it - but it's true.
summermusic 8d ago
> If anything AI generated menus are likely to lift the quality floor. The consensus among my peers and clearly the people in this article is that badly-designed or templated menus are perceived to be of higher quality than AI-generated menus. This is clearly not universal as business owners obviously don't seem to mind, but business owners are not especially known for having good taste in design and those of us who do find these AI menus atrocious.

by vidarh 10d ago

Apocryphon 10d ago

There's a recent meme of AI-generated representations of food being notably unappetizing, even grotesque and repulsive: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-restaurant-food-images https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-restaurant-food-images

phil21 10d ago

I think there is a big difference between using AI generated food pictures, vs. taking real pictures of your food and using AI to create a menu/poster. The former is both weird, creepy most of the time, and false advertising. The latter is as you say - the state of the current status quo. I can tell that it's AI, but honestly it's just replacing low-effort human crud for low-effort AI crud. Doesn't bother me at all, it's actually a great use for the technology imo.

quietsegfault 10d ago
What about the pictures of Chinese food above the counter vs. the actual food you get? There has ALWAYS been a big difference between advertisements and menus and what the food really looks like.
- phil21 10d ago
  Funnily enough, I was thinking of exactly those photos when writing my comment. I never found them to be all that misrepresentative - that they took a photo from their family friend of their father taken 20 years ago for the same dish they are making me and have it on some faded menu board behind the counter is... honestly pretty close. It's the fake AI generated "shine" I guess that is the difference to me. Obviously totally made up, not real food, and made to look pretty. It's mostly the uncanny valley. Both are indeed false advertising, but the AI generated ones are so obviously made up and not real it's a little off putting to me. Wouldn't really stop me from ordering if I were already there, but it might make me order from their competitor if I were on Uber Eats or whatnot.
- fd45e 10d ago
  And that is true.. but guess what? We should be inventing technologies that DIMINISH and punish this behaviour. But we ain't. We are doing the exact opposite. Nice. The best we have is Google reviews lmao.
- sillyfluke 9d ago
  My usual Chinese spots have pretty terrible food pictures, seemingly taken as an afterthought with no effort given to make the food look more appetizing at all. So kind of the opposite of false advertising.
vidarh 9d ago
As long as it's visibly AI, I don't think it's meaningfully false advertising. The bigger problem with respect to false advertising will be when even the low-effort AI crud is plausible enough that people don't recognise it.

fd45e 10d ago

"If anything, it reliably signals "cheap"" And this my friends is closer to what GI is than solving Navier-Stokes. I know many... lets say 'intellecutals' here can't fathom it - but it's true.

summermusic 8d ago

> If anything AI generated menus are likely to lift the quality floor. The consensus among my peers and clearly the people in this article is that badly-designed or templated menus are perceived to be of higher quality than AI-generated menus. This is clearly not universal as business owners obviously don't seem to mind, but business owners are not especially known for having good taste in design and those of us who do find these AI menus atrocious.