alt Hacker News> Yesterday I encountered AI-generated food photos on a menu for the first time. I immediately felt grossed out before even realising why. Their generated focaccias didn't even look like food, just off-putting trypophobia triggers.
Also, that's just misleading. When I see pictures of food on a menu, I expect them to be real pictures of an example of the actual dish I'd get (perhaps made a little more carefully with more of an eye towards presentation, but the actual, real item).
AI-generated food photos on a menu are dirty lies.
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Not that either are OK, but McDonalds basically stages their food to make it look more appealing, adding stuff that isn't in the product to make it look nicer.
https://youtu.be/pSYw8LTXXJM?is=FsJwTFKUkeDt1Z2Y
Tangentially, I kinda like the idea of Doordashs crowd sourced food images. Take a Pic of your food before you eat and get like a $5 discount if it is chosen. Customers are not likely to manipulate the product (they may stage it nicely like you mentioned but won't put browning agent or other additives to make it shinier).
> When I see pictures of food on a menu, I expect them to be real pictures of an example of the actual dish I'd get
I don't get who would think that's a good idea. Like if I order something because the picture shows that the dish has carrots or something and the dish you bring doesn't I'm going to complain.
But then again I can't tell you the number of restaurants that have a photograph of a menu on a website where the original was clearly digital already.