SoftwareAIGrocery delivery service Instacart has been using AI to make up impossible recipes and generate images of horrifying and hilarious foodWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
SoftwareAIGrocery delivery service Instacart has been using AI to make up impossible recipes and generate images of horrifying and hilarious foodWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Nacon)
One would hope that, when reading a recipe, a human being has at some point crafted it personally, adjusting the ingredients and techniques inside over a process of elimination and careful adjustment to create a delicious result. Or, if you’re receiving a recipe from grocery delivery service Instacart, you could hope that the app’s AI-generated recipes would lead to something delectable.
Sometimes, sure. And others? Might be best to give it a miss.
Instacart announced inMay of last yearthey they would be partnering with OpenAI to launch an AI-powered “Food Inspiration Search Tool” and AI-generated recipes, which given AI’s tendency to go slightly off the rails on occasion strikes as a dubious idea right from the off. However, it was users of theInstacart subredditthat were first to notice that something odd was happening with the accompanying images.
My favourite thus far is a photo for a “Microwave Mug Chocolate Chip Cookie a la Mode” which shows a perfectly reasonable looking cup of presumably delicious dessert, if not for the chocolate chip cookie welded onto the side of the mug. Good try, AI, but you’ve failed to pass detection once again.
And as for the recipes themselves, the AI experiment doesn’t seem to have gone all that well here either.404 mediafound that, when asking the AI to create a recipe with tomatoes, cucumbers, ground beef, onions, lemons, and chocolate—a heady mix we think you’ll agree—the AI created a “citrus beef salad” that seemed somewhat plausible until a step requiring the user to “sprinkle the shaved chocolate on top as a surprising twist”. Mmmm.
We told Instacart that their impossible and often gross AI-generated recipes had obviously AI-generated images to go along with them, so they replaced them with other AI-generated images. @emanuelmaiberg still trying to figure out what “monito sauce” ishttps://t.co/7DwqufH1lEFebruary 21, 2024
We told Instacart that their impossible and often gross AI-generated recipes had obviously AI-generated images to go along with them, so they replaced them with other AI-generated images. @emanuelmaiberg still trying to figure out what “monito sauce” ishttps://t.co/7DwqufH1lEFebruary 21, 2024
More than that, recipes have been reported calling for 3 1/5 teaspoon’s worth of an ingredient, or one cup of “Monito sauce”, which sounds delicious except, well, it doesn’t exist. Boo. Someone really should invent it though. I’d order it in a heartbeat. Sounds yum.
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Well, all this AI chat has made me hungry, but if its alright with y’all, I think I’ll leave the recipes to an actual chef. Or me, a man who has made worse things than these AI creations, sometimes after one too many at my local pub.
That’s my excuse anyway, and I’ll have you know I’m sticking to it.
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