I tested AI-generated Food images on DoorDash – the results shocked me!

Have you noticed AI images popping up in your food scene? I sure have! From ice cream signage to burgers that look more cartoonish than real, I questioned the thought process behind the marketing. Why would restaurants use AI to generate fake-looking food? Are they hiding something? Are they too lazy or busy to take photos with their phone in broad daylight?

Restaurants and customers need an inherent trust in one another. The restaurant is serving food as promised by photos on social media and tantalizing descriptions on a menu. The customer, based on appearances and maybe a few reviews, trusts the restaurant will provide what is promised. When a restaurant starts cutting corners in this psychological conversation it leaves the customer feeling uneasy.

I wanted to test these Ai generated food images I found on DoorDash so that I could see if the restaurants were cutting corners but I also wanted to see if Ai expectations met reality. AND, while I was there, I wanted to see how much the mark up was between DoorDash delivery vs DoorDash pick up vs if I simply ordered food at the restaurant to go. How much are we paying for convenience?

How I found Ai Images

The process of finding AI images was fairly simple, yet the more I looked at photos of food, the more I questioned whether they were real or just highly edited. Luckily, on my local DoorDash, there aren’t as many restaurants using Ai which I think is a sign of a healthy food scene. Here in the Okanagan wine valley in British Columbia, Canada, we value local, which includes farmers, brewers, wine makers and more. If you were to find a farmer selling their veggies at the local farmers’ market using an AI banner they would get berated. If you can’t stand behind your product, then you shouldn’t be in the business.

As I scrolled through DoorDash, I found two glaringly obvious AI images being used to promote food. One was a pancake with eggs and ham from a local chain, DeDutch, which has been around since the 70s and has 12 locations, 2 of which are in Kelowna, British Columbia. The other was a noodle burger, a street food made popular in India and described as crispy noodles, yet in the image, it looks like spaghetti noodles on a bun. The burger image quite literally turned my stomach just looking at it!

The Test – DoorDash Fees, Quality & AI Images of Food

I not only wanted to see if the AI images were at all similar to what I would get if ordered from DoorDash, but I also wanted to see how much I was charged if I picked up, DoorDash to my office or if I simply called the restaurant to order/got it to go. This was an additional surprise to find how much the markup and fees, essentially the cost of the DoorDash convenience, add up to.

I also wanted to test the quality of the food. Were these restaurants using AI images because they simply couldn’t deliver a dish that looked appetizing? Why use AI images of food when you’re constantly creating the very dish you want to see. Today, everyone has a phone in their pocket. A photo next to a window looks more enticing than anything AI could generate.

The Surprise – The AI Inspired Dinner

During the same week I was making this video, a dinner experience popped up in my community – An AI-Inspired Dinner in Kelowna, British Columbia. I felt I needed to check it out but what I found was essentially a seminar. Food and AI had nothing to do with each other. It was a 3 hour event where I paid $100 to sit and listen to a man speak from his paper. When he mentioned Grok was his favourite AI companion, I mentioned the ethics of Grok’s history with kids and women. Visibly agitated, he shrugged and said: “If they’re working on it, which they said they are, that’s good enough for me.”

What’s my stance with AI?

In my work, I’ve definitely used AI. It can help with quick mock-ups of products that do not yet exist. It helps quickly scan pages of documents. But I won’t deny that there is a serious issue with ethics across the board with both creator and user, not to mention its reliance on water is unsustainable.
I am still hesitant about the use of AI, and if we rely on it too much where does that leave the human experience? At the end of the day, it is in the hands of each user and these complications that can and do arise with each person. Some will undoubtedly use it for good and bad but in doing so how much of the human experience are they then not getting to experience themselves? If we use it to write a book – how much are we losing in the writing process and personal growth? If we use it to write a love letter (something that actually happened and was discussed in the AI-inspired dinner), what’s the point? If we use it to create food images of our restaurant what are we communitcating admitting to ourselves and our customers?