Uber Eats Ridiculed For Listing Strange AI-Generated Images Of Food
Photo 202449293 © Michele Ursi | Dreamstime.com
Uber Eats’ customers are sizzling the app for marketing a restaurant’s menu with unappetizing imagery that appears to have been cooked up by artificial intelligence.
The internet’s attention perked up after X/Twitter user Online Boy shared screenshots of the online menu for Roma Pizza, a New York City eatery operating under Tony’s Pizzeria & Restaurant. Instead of photographs of actual meals, the listings featured peculiar pictures of lattice pies and other variations of pastry, suggesting some confusion from the AI in its understanding of “pie” in the context of pizza.
Uber Eats is using AI for pictures of food. It doesn’t know that “pie” means pizza, and it invented a brand of ranch dressing called “Lelnach” pic.twitter.com/raFZArsERN
— Listen to Online Boy on Spotify or else (threat) (@realonlineboy) November 30, 2023
So many vile pies in this menu pic.twitter.com/iYC5siohiv
— Listen to Online Boy on Spotify or else (threat) (@realonlineboy) December 3, 2023
Among the oddities, one picture linked to a “2 Plates Special” evoked photos of unappealing retro meals.
Lmao pic.twitter.com/KhVgRvjiP2
— barbarism critic 🔻 FreePalestine🇵🇸 (@SxarletRed) December 1, 2023
Users were most enticed—or, rather, put off—by one faux photo of a ranch bottle labeled as a non-existent brand called “Lelnach.”
love to have a little LELNACH on the side pic.twitter.com/v2UGBXbrGI
— Blacque Jacques Shellacque (@bornwithatail_) December 1, 2023
When contacted by the Twitter user, pizzeria staff were apparently confused by the mention of AI and asserted that they did not authorize the upload of these images.
A guy from Tony’s named Sal called me back 5 minutes later and said he was very confused what was happening and that he didn’t know what AI was. I tried to explain it and he just said “I don’t know about this stuff, but I didn’t approve these images”
— Listen to Online Boy on Spotify or else (threat) (@realonlineboy) December 1, 2023
Uber Eats has since removed the AI-generated images from Roma Pizza’s menu, restoring order to the digital dining experience.
This place makes traditional Italian rice balls pic.twitter.com/y3EiHkJqbZ
— Justin Whang 🙠(@JustinWhang) November 30, 2023
[via Futurism, InsideHook, Dexerto, images via various sources]
