Don’t Believe What You See in the Age of AI Ads
Generative AI is making it easier for advertisers to lie. More disclaimers and warnings could help.
One of the AI images advertising “Willy's Chocolate Experience!” in Glasgow, Scotland, “a place where chocolate dreams become reality.”
Source: willyschocolateexperience.comAdvertising has always walked a thin line between embellishment and fabrication. In the new age of generative artificial intelligence, the latter is becoming easier. Making an online ad no longer requires careful staging of well-lit photographs because now they can be made and enhanced in fantastical ways. Consumers need to sharpen their wits as we move from unnaturally juicy hamburgers to depictions of people and food that aren’t physically plausible. Consider this bizarre pasta concoction that Instacart, the grocery-delivery service, used in its recent marketing:
Instacart has now deleted the Frankenstein’s monster of food and recipes that don’t (or probably shouldn’t) exist, which included fare like “watermelon popsicles with chocolate chips,” which appears to have been conjured with new image-generation tools. But it wasn’t alone. Restaurants that sell food exclusively through delivery apps like DoorDash and Just Eat Takeaway.com NV’s Grubhub have also used images of unidentifiable breaded objects on their pasta, according to 404 Media.