Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

blog.fiddery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 322 posts

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#101

Post by gegtik »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #4
gegtik wrote: post #3

I do think that AI signage/advertising is the new signifier of low-effort, low-skill output and that is how it will be perceived by clientele. Similar to someone just scrawling a sandwich board sign in chalk (which at this point I would prefer). Businesses will stand out from a taste perspective by continuing to hire human effort to make recognisable human output.

Writing in signs and menus in chalk has been a signal for a high quality restaurant for as long as I can remember. With photos of the food, and/or ring bound menus being the worst.

I did say "scrawl",

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#102

Post by oeitho »

kleene_op wrote: post #89
oeitho wrote: post #40

I'm starting to see more and more generated images of food at restaurants where I live, but I'm happy to say that its still somewhat rare. My partner and I usually just give a one star review each on Google when we pass by a place like this and then carry on.

That's the definition of judging a book by its cover. Maybe they don't care about spending money on design and just want to focus on the food they serve, you'll never know. I would also probably be less inclined to enter a restaurant if I saw generated images advertising the food as opposed to real ones. But I would never ever dare put a one star review without even having been a customer there in the first place. I…

> That's the definition of judging a book by its cover.

I’m not sure whether I disagree that a menu is a book or whether judging a book by its cover is a bad thing in this instance.

A menu has to list certain allergens, but not all. That would be inconvenient. With pictures however, people with allergies can more efficiently rule out or order dishes based on what they see.

Generated images breaks with this. I’ve seen multiple places not add certain ingredients to their images that would be there in a photo. I think this is irresponsible. You are free to disagree though, but you need a proper argument if you want to convince us.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#103

Post by ericpauley »

abrugsch wrote: post #71
_joel wrote: post #28

Well at least the peas weren't upside down... https://preview.redd.it/the-peas-are-upside-down-v0-5pwo713b...

looks like every kebab shop menu near me. All offerings crudely cut/pasted/mashed together. 5 near me literally have the same menu with different prices and a colour theme to match their (usually terrible, 3-D font effect from 90's era Corel Draw) Logo. And they were like that BEFORE GenAI got popular!

This brought back fond memories of my favorite kebab cart in college. Looked back at their cart on Google Maps and some of the menu items are just the same image stretched differently.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#104

Post by dev0p »

mablopoule wrote: post #61
dev0p wrote: post #48

The loss of personality is real. The most heartbreaking ones I've seen are in schools, or anywhere that children are involved. For example, at my local preschool there was a wall flyer with information about what to bring the swimming pool. It had the most crudely drawn fishes and crabs and seahorses that I had ever seen. It was clear that whoever drew that had no prior experience with anything even remotely resembli…

Because the AI one are soul-less, and the badly drawn ones are not, simple as that.

I'm aware of that, and it becomes extremely obvious in an inherently soulful context such as a preschool.

Still, while "it's AI generated crap" and variations thereof are all perfectly valid reasons by themselves, they are way, WAY too shallow for the average guy who looks at both versions and prefers the AI one because it looks "better". I would probably sound crazy and/or pretentious trying to explain to him why I prefer the badly drawn one to the perfect AI generated one, I do not know exactly why myself.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#106

Post by maxglute »

Google maps needs a tool to create menu from best user submitted pics. Still use AI to clean up lighting, masking, layout etc, but there's enough data to cover most popular dishes. Feels like all the REAL useful data / pieces are there to solve the problem.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#107

Post by Gud »

maxglute wrote: post #106

Google maps needs a tool to create menu from best user submitted pics. Still use AI to clean up lighting, masking, layout etc, but there's enough data to cover most popular dishes. Feels like all the REAL useful data / pieces are there to solve the problem.

No thanks.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#108

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

Outside of cheap takeout places, I neither need nor want to see pictures of food on menus, because I can read the menu and decide for myself whether I want to try something based off the description. I'd rather a blown out flash photo of a plate of noodles than a generated image though.

I was under the impression that FTC laws require food advertisement photos to be the "real" thing. I don't know if the FTC covers food service but if so I wonder if they just don't want to bother slapping restaurants with fines over generated product images in menus (or if menus just aren't covered by the same regulation). Also I wonder if there's some grey area when it pertains to "photos" vs "generated images" (though the latter is clearly intended to stand in for the former).

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#109

Post by mlekoszek »

biophysboy wrote: post #25

Low effort products will be used by low effort companies. In the case of restaurants, this might not necessarily be bad - I’ve been to amazing taco/burrito shops w abysmal menus. But if I went to a “high end” place with an AI menu and instagram decor - bad, bad sign. I genuinely think AI companies need to worry more about their brand. Just through how their products are used, they are perceived as a marker for low qu…

> But if I went to a “high end” place with an AI menu and instagram decor - bad, bad sign.

Sometimes I wonder if this will settle into its own form of kitsch over the years, and whether people will someday try to emulate it (with a wink and a nod).

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#110

Post by mlekoszek »

mathw wrote: post #68
ivan888 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But consider how, in just a short few years, tools will have changed so much that even achieving this specific look will not even be possible (everything is in the cloud and normal users can’t even run them locally) We’ll inevitably end up feeling nostalgic for these mid-2020s AI slop menus, much like how graphic design of the 90s and 2000s is revered (see other comments on this post) even while during its making was…

No we won't.

Never say never. People are paying through the nose for a pair of JNCOs these days.
Post reply on HN