Ethos_atx, which claims to be Austin’s number one restaurant, has nearly 73,000 Instagram followers, reams of positive reviews on its highlights, and photos of seemingly mouth watering food. There is a link to a reservations page. It all looks like a pretty normal restaurant IG account. 

But when you look closer, every single thing from the photos of the food, to the venue, is AI generated. The posts from the restaurant get thousands of likes and shares, many from people who don't seem to realize it's all fake. "These are so cute! Tiny greens with big flavor," a business account for a micro greens company commented on a recent post of AI generated micro greens. 

"This is some amazing food photography, everything looks impeccable," another user commented on an AI generated photo of scallops. 

The page pushes users to a merchandise shop, where Ethos is selling more AI generated products. There are fake, AI generated oil paintings of food, phone cases with AI generated images, t-shirts with AI generated art, stickers, and clothing with the Ethos brand name emblazoned on the front.

It’s unclear what Ethos_atx’s ultimate goal is. “It’s either a scam or a delusional person trying to manifest their dream into existence without any actual path to success,” one Reddit user posted in one of several discussions about the page on the Austin food subreddit.

Role playing online isn't new, the administrator is likely making money from the merch, and clearly at least some portion of Ethos' fans are in on the joke. The restaurant's tagline is "home of unreal flavors." When reached for comment, the restaurant joked they were preparing for a Michelin guide review and couldn't respond. Justine Moore, an investor in San Francisco, noted that the restaurant even has AI generated chefs.

But none of the AI generated content posted on the entire account is labeled as AI generated, and photos of AI food has become a plague on the culinary world. 

Restaurants and food companies are increasingly leveraging AI generated images, generating hyper-realistic or fantastical dishes that might not even be possible in real life. Dozens of ghost kitchens have been advertising AI generated menu items on Doordash and Grubhub and Instacart was suggesting AI generated recipes for dishes with ingredients that don’t even exist. 

This barrage of AI generated food slop, paired with restaurant recommendation systems that are already easy to gamify, makes it harder and harder to know what’s a real eatery. Several years ago a man made his backyard shed the top rated restaurant on TripAdvisor. Last year, a restaurant named Mehran’s Steak House received a near-perfect Google rating. The restaurant never existed and was all an elaborate joke. 

Eli Sussman, the executive chef and partner at gertrude's, an IRL (and extremely delicious!) bistro in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, said that restaurant food in particular is becoming harder and harder to distinguish between AI and reality. In many ways, the effect of social media on the food industry has primed us all for absurd AI food images and made them even more difficult to detect. 

In the late 2010s, in an effort to garner Instagram attention, restaurants began offering more insane and over the top menu items, like extravagant milkshake sundays, wild fusion items like ramen burgers, and leaning into theatrics when it came to presentation. 

"All these buzzy food items [created to go viral on social media]," Sussman said, "have set people up to think to themselves, 'well maybe that 12 layer sandwich is a real thing and not AI, because I have seen restaurants that are doing these outrages sandwiches and dishes to just go viral."

goramen

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We already have steaks with gold leaf on them presented in a briefcase with an explosion of sparklers and dry ice, maybe a croissant in the shape of Moo Deng isn't so far fetched. 

"We’re entering closer to the food singularity or event horizon," Sussman said, where real food becomes increasingly absurd in order to maximize attention on social media, and AI generated food looks even more realistic. "It's all blending and skewing together," he said.

After staring at photos of AI generated food for hours on Sunday, I grabbed a sandwich at Anthony & Son Panini Shoppe in Williamsburg on Monday with some friends. The food came out wrapped in no frills paper, presented by Anthony himself who had a tiny Italian flag painted on his fingernail. No glitter, no gimmicks, it made me appreciate good, real food.

What I’m reading

‘Pod Save America’ Won’t Quit

The hosts of the political podcast have outlasted the wave of anti-Trump #Resistance that made it popular. That’s where things get complicated. - NYT

Matthew Segal on how ATTN will be the ‘HBO of short-form’

Born in 2014, the media company ATTN is the product of the Facebook video age, and was initially seen as a video-based competitor to the likes of BuzzFeed and Vice. - Semafor

Why OpenAI Is at War With an Obscure Idea Man Guy Ravine’s

Open AI (with a space) owns a trademark and website that OpenAI (no space) wants. What can their lawsuits tell us about the future of AI—and who wins in Silicon Valley? - Bloomberg

Elon Musk's X Is Accelerating Our Descent Into a Post-Truth Nightmare

X is distorting reality—and it could swing the upcoming election. - The Present Age

Anti-vax conspiracies spread about a young TikTok star's death. She previously went viral for spreading anti-vax conspiracies.

No one seems to remember her most viral video. - Disruptionist

Some of the Web’s Sketchiest Sites Share an Address in Iceland

A Reykjavik building that houses a penis museum and an H&M is also the virtual home to an array of perpetrators of identity theft, ransomware and disinformation. - NYT

More fun stuff

Competitive daydreamers gathered in Tokyo today for the “2024 Space-out Competition” Heart rates were checked and anyone who laughed, talked or dozed off was eliminated during the 90 min competition.

Gen Z’s are becoming increasingly nostalgic for the 2010s.

Meta has hired the kid who created the AI social network (fitting since Facebook itself has become an entirely AI generated social network).

John Cena got Fanum taxed.

People are filling old newspaper boxes with movies and calling it ‘Free Blockbuster.’

Here’s a good hack for excluding AI generated garbage from Google search.

Lieutenant Dan, the guy living on a boat who refused to evacuate during last week’s hurricane, was milkshake ducked very fast.

Joe Berkowitz wrote about the horrible interviewer who keeps trying to drag celebrities for not enjoying their part in her bad interviews.

Men in finance are over their Submariners apparently and into cheap, cheesy watches (same!).

A great Q&A with Harrison Ford.

What I’m up to

Last week I attended Bloomberg’s Screentime event as a sponsored guest. It was my first official brand deal as an independent creator! Obviously I’m heavily biased because I’m friends with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw and they paid me to attend and create content lol, but I genuinely had an amazing time.

I met people I’ve known online for years IRL, like Sean Evans of Hot Ones, a bunch of cool people from Hulu and Netflix, and Miles Fisher, who created that viral deepfake Tom Cruise a couple years ago, and now runs an AI company that can quite literally age or de-age celebrities in real time while shooting movies. It blew my mind.

This was probably one of my favorite work events of the year because it was such a great mix of people in the entertainment, pop culture, and tech world. By far, my favorite moment was witnessing a live Hot Ones wish Jason Blum, my all time idol.

Later last week I celebrated the launch of The Hollywood Reporter’s Creator’s issue. I went to the launch party at Delilah which was packed with influencers, agents, and top managers in the creator world. We got a live performance from Huddy (formerly of the Hype House), but the highlight of my night was hanging out with Mia, who runs lifes.a.bender, one of my favorite meme pages. (This was the only pic we got together 😭).

I wrote two big print stories for The Hollywood Reporter’s Creators issue: a state of the creator economy” type main piece that went alongside the big influencer photoshoot and a piece of the rise of faceless influencers.

That’s it for now! I’ll be back in your inbox later this week.

For more great content follow my meme page, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Instagram broadcast channel where I share links all week long.

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