Adaeze Onejeme, a 28-year-old ad sales worker in Los Angeles, was visiting a night market in Hollywood with her sister in late August when she noticed something curious. Stall after stall, hawking loaded French fries or taquitos or smoothies, featured menus with pictures that at first seemed real — until she looked closer and noticed a too-perfect, almost rubbery aesthetic. “I was like, ‘Those don’t look like chicken nuggets. Those don’t look like typical food that we eat,’” Onejeme said.
Describing what she encountered as an “AI flyer epidemic,” Onejeme filmed videos of some of the market stalls and she shared them on TikTok. Then, instead of patronizing one of the vendors using artificial intelligence on their menus, she settled on buying some fries and lemonade from stores advertising their food the old-fashioned way.
“Not too long ago, people would just take a picture of the food and that would be on the menu. Now, these AI-generated pictures — the saturation, the coloring, the texture. It’s like you don’t even know what you’re going to get when it comes out,” Onejeme said in an interview. “At that point, is it false advertising?”
Generative AI has quickly become prevalent in marketing, particularly in illustrations or videos, to the discomfort or disdain of many beholders. In the dining scene, whether at food trucks or bodegas, diners or cafes, the use of “AI slop menus,” as some TikTokers have dubbed them, can signify qualities people generally don’t want to associate with food: low quality, laziness or, well, slop.
