Just Eat apologises over inaccurate AI-generated food images

Just Eat has apologised after AI-generated images of restaurant dishes were ridiculed on social media. The food delivery platform had been testing the tool to create images for menu items that did not yet have pictures.

Some results misinterpreted the dishes. Images included bacon and eggs floating in cola, apparently confusing “soda” with “soda bread”, and chips poking out of muffins. A cheese roll was depicted as sushi made from rolled slabs of cheese.

A Just Eat spokesperson told the BBC that the company was removing inaccurate images and would pause creating more until the AI tool had been further developed. The spokesperson said Just Eat works with tens of thousands of small restaurants on food imagery, including by funding professional local photographers. The company had been trialling AI-enhanced images and said the technology was not always right on the first try.

Images generated with AI are labelled as such in the app, but the BBC found some unusual examples still on menus. The cases drew attention to the challenges of using AI to interpret words in specific contexts. Some social media users found the images funny; another questioned whether AI images could give customers misleading expectations of how a dish would look.