It is becoming impossible to avoid images generated by “artificial intelligence”. The Super Bowl also featured a creepy AI-generated ad featuring dancing soulless “people” for Svedka vodka. Scroll through delivery apps and you’ll find examples of eerily perfect, bright images of restaurant food. Whenever I see a food brand using AI images, I avoid it. That’s a signal that the actual food served there is not tasty.
I regularly take my dog past a pizzeria down the street that uses AI imagery of incredible cheese slices on sandwich boards on the sidewalk. The cheese will drip from the sides to look delicious, but that’s not how melted cheese works. Computers are actually trying to portray something that was never real. Our human mind places it in the “uncanny valley” between existence and imitation, occupying neither space. I tried the pie there before the board hit the streets and it was disappointing. That shop used low quality cheese and the dough was tasteless. We find that places like this rely on AI images because the actual products made there aren’t as good.
At least there are rules for food photography
There’s no need to fake a delicious, cheesy pizza. It’s already photogenic. If I can’t take a picture of a good pizza at a pizzeria, my first thought is that it’s because the pizza place doesn’t serve good pizza. Yes, food photographers are expensive, but many restaurants can be photographed just fine with high-quality cameras on modern mobile phones. Influencers are flooding Instagram with amazing photos of what they’re eating, proving there’s no need to pay a photographer. By simply following our tips for taking better photos, you can save yourself the trouble of finding the right prompt to convince the AI bot that the cheese pull is coming from the side of the slice instead of the center.
Some people may say that food photos are a lie. They might point out debunked myths, like using motor oil in pancakes instead of maple syrup. Yes, food stylists make food look good, making it look fluffier and juicier than the McDonald’s burger you open in your car. But the images are still real food. I will try once and learn in the future that what they are exhibiting is not what they offer, as opposed to what they are exhibiting is not possible in our reality.
