AI is killing folk graphic design, and the resulting "Lovecraftian horrors" are making people want to never eat out again

We've seen businesses complain about automatic AI-generated images thrust upon their products on platforms like Amazon, Reddit and Uber Eats. Some understandably fear that the fake imagery could harm their sales.

What some people finding harder to fathom is why, at the same time, other companies are willfully using AI image generation themselves, even when it produces nightmarish depictions of what they're selling.

Small restaurants, delis and food trucks seem to be particular culprits. On social media, people have been posting images of depicting bizarre, sometime downright nasty-looking menu items, and it's making people nostalgic for the days of bad amateur Photoshop jobs.

Writing on X, a technology reporter recently suggested that AI image generation is killing the great tradition of 'folk graphic design' at small eateries. He backed up that claim with photos from a deli that appears to serve instant noodles topped with a hiterto undocumented species of headless and tailless shrimp.

Amateur menu design might not always have been very good, but it had its charm. Even when the food photography wasn't the most flattering, there was something to be said for its honesty: you knew what you were getting. With AI-generated food imagery, can you demand a refund if your dish doesn't come topped with a radioactive creature?

Lots of other people have jumped on the thread to share their own evidence of AI food nightmares. A word of warning to anyone who suffers from trypophobia (disgust at clustered patterns of holes and bumps): the alien textures in some of these images may make you never want to eat out again.

Some people have the attitude that if a restaurant uses imagery like this, they're staying well away.

"This is a matter of detail orientation and quality control. If this is the level of your attention to detail and your ability to manage quality, no way am I putting anything you make in my mouth," one person writes.

"I hope all the restaurants who do this are preparing for bankruptcy within the year because nobody wants to eat radioactive food that looks like it was made by brain damaged space aliens," another person comments.

"I just don't understand what was wrong with whatever this deli already had before generative AI, only like what, two three years ago? An old photo is better than this. Written text without picture is surely better than this," someone else says.

It seems AI menus have become their own genre of AI nightmare fuel, up there with AI children's books. Many of us expected this might happen. Despite the worst fears about AI, design agencies remain in business because large companies and brands generally don't want to make their customers feel sick of associate themselves with AI slop (although Coca-Cola and Skechers have turned out to be exceptions).

But smaller businesses that might otherwise have hired an independent freelancer or handled design internally using whatever resources they had see easy access to AI image generators as a time saver. They might need to realise that the hassle of taking photos was worth the time and effort to avoid creeping out potential customers.