Thread

A coffee shop owner used AI to make a menu poster. Then came the angry DMs

82 points · 316 comments · TMWNN

HanShotFirst · 1789588770 · focus · HN ↗
I've noticed a very sudden uptick in these AI designed signs and menus in my area. I fully understand why they are used by small business owners (fast and cheap), and I think getting angry at or threatening a business owner for using them is a huge overreaction.
That said, my own aesthetic sense is very much turned off by them. It is hard for me to articulate why, but I can name four reasons:
- The food never actually looks good, real, or delicious;
- The information is presented in a haphazard way, with text randomly thrown all over the place;
- There is really only one kind of "style" of these signs that I've seen, and it's sad to think that this style (or lack thereof) may become ubiquitous;
- In a world where AI feels increasingly shoved down our throats, it is unnerving to so suddenly see its rise manifested in the physical world.
1. vidarh · 1789595210 · focus · HN ↗
  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".
  1. Apocryphon · 1789596096 · focus · HN ↗
    There's a recent meme of AI-generated representations of food being notably unappetizing, even grotesque and repulsive:
    <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-restaurant-food-images" rel="nofollow">https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-restaurant-food-images
  2. phil21 · 1789599820 · focus · HN ↗
    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 · 1789601273 · focus · HN ↗
    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 · 1789602177 · focus · HN ↗
    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 · 1789606390 · focus · HN ↗
    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 · 1789675055 · focus · HN ↗
    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 · 1789635837 · focus · HN ↗
    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.
  3. fd45e · 1789606302 · focus · HN ↗
    "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.
  4. summermusic · 1789740923 · focus · HN ↗
    > 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.

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