Generative artificial intelligences really come in all shapes and sizes. The proof with AI Food Generator, which generates photos of ready meals from simple textual descriptions. Don’t salivate too much!
Everyone is now talking about OpenAI, the company that developed the amazing conversational chatbot ChatGPT. AT so much so that many companies, starting with Microsoft, want to incorporate AI into their tools and services. Photo, video, painting, writing, code, music, voice… Simple text prompts produce content in seconds! Some even see more incongruous and incredible uses, especially in the fields of medicine, psychology and law (see our article). The culinary field could also have the right to its little revolution!
In any case, this is what Lunchboox, a company specializing in the development of software for restaurants, hopes. As noticed Business Insider, it has launched since January 19 a tool called AI Food Generator which, as its name suggests, generates images of dishes from a simple text. For this, it has partnered with none other than OpenAI in order to be able to exploit its generative DALL-E image AI. AI Food Generator is currently available for free on the site lunch box – but it is not impossible, given the costs that artificial intelligence generates, that the firm ends up setting up a paid subscription, as for ChatGPT. According to Business Insider, no less than 175 million images have been generated since the launch of the tool. But if success is there, such technology raises questions…
AI Food Generator: images of ready meals generated by AI
Like its counterparts, AI Food Generator is extremely easy to use. Simply indicate the desired dish in the Search field (a burger, an apple pie, a cassoulet…) and, if necessary, indicate the background in the Background field (a plain blue background, a bar terrace , a beach, etc.) and style the photo in Style. Then, you have to click on the Generate button and wait a few moments to get the result! For standard dishes, the result is quite satisfactory, but it is also possible to generate more eccentric dishes, even inedible – who wants a stone salad? Lunchbox claims that each photo generated is unique, due to the fact that it is created by an AI based on the technique of machine learning.
A question arises, however: why generate images of food when you are a restaurant – the primary target of the company – and you cook on a daily basis? “We launched this free generator to provide small and new restaurants with access to the same tools that the big platforms offer for a fee”, Nabeel Alamgir, CEO of Lunchbox, to Business Insider, alluding to professional photographers specializing in this very particular kind of shooting. According to the site, putting photos on its menus in delivery platforms, such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo, would increase sales by 65% and bring 70% more orders. And that’s without taking into account the fact that, in the age of social networks, good visual communication is crucial for catering players, by advertising on Instagram for example.
But the use of such a tool still raises some problems, especially in terms of ethics – which is also the case for any type of AI. Indeed, the dishes received by customers are not at all the same as those shown in the photos – they are not even the same recipes or ingredients! Enough to provoke the ire of those who notice it! Even if it is a problem that has already existed before – the famous “non-contractual” photos –, this type of tool is likely to reinforce this misleading practice. Le Figaro asked Uber Eats about it. The platform claims that it only houses “no image of dishes which was generated by AI“. If the restaurateurs can upload their own photos on it, these are subject to moderation. And if ever, unfortunately, the customer were to complain about a dish that does not conform to the photos presented, he can in “inform the customer service which will then take care of the investigation and possibly the refund of the order“. Not seen not caught ?