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Take a good look at the sweet elderly lady artistically pictured above –  real or not real? It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? 

If you know anything about AI art generators already like openAI’s Dall-E, you probably know they can churn out fantastical art with frightening efficiency, but recently they have also been hitting the headlines for getting better at making photorealistic images, like a drone shot of surfers on a beach that won a photo contest. 

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American startup Lunchbox has created the AI Food Generator, capable of generating ridiculously realistic images of food that you’d never suspect were actually created using AI software – and they look mouth-wateringly delicious. So delicious, in fact, that it could misrepresent the food that’s ultimately brought to you by your server.

To create the image, you’ll need to follow the AI template and input the food type that you would like to generate, plus the background color, and style (such as painted, cartoon or realistic) and the AI will create four viable images of a food product. 

• Forget AI – these are the best lenses for food photography

The AI Food Generator is built on the DALL•E 2 technology by OpenAI, and produces food ‘photography’ that’s incredibly impressive – but potentially problematic. We recently reported how AI forensic police sketches were the latest problematic branch of AI image generation, and this new application might be just as harmful in other ways.

What happens when a restaurant advertises a five-star cheeseburger dripping in delicacy and oozing fancy cheeses, but they can’t deliver this product when someone orders it? False advertising is one problem, but forcing usually minimum wage or lower-paid food servers to bare the brunt of angry customers is another. 

Consumers already have high expectations when it comes to food so throwing AI into the mix can only really end badly for the small restaurant chains that this new AI program is pitching to help. “Food items that add an image see 70% more orders and 65% higher sales compared to restaurants that do not,” states the Lunchbox website. 

While this might be true, it could undoubtedly land restaurants and even local kebab shops in trouble if they’re advertising something they can’t deliver – or using an image that might be similar to one from an already existing pool of professional food photography with the risk of facing copyright infringement or a lawsuit from Getty. 

Lunchbox’s software is totally free for public use – and as we’ve been saying time and time again, AI imagery is a disaster for photographers attempting to make a living. Now food photographers especially will suffer as a result of this new AI. Realistically, why would a business pay for food photography when there’s a website that will generate it for free?

In speaking with Business Insider, Lunchbox CEO Nabeel Alamgir said that “Lunchbox pays OpenAI a ‘small fee’ per query”, and that since its launch in January 2023 the platform has generated 175 million AI photos. Alamgir also noted that the company has no way of tracking which brands or restaurants are making use of the tool for businesses. 

“We understand maintaining menu integrity is important,” he added. “The reason we launched the food image generator is because it can get profoundly close to the real visual of your more simple dishes, but it carries out the marketing component that many new and small restaurants cannot afford.”

Some food for thought: do restaurants really need an image for every single menu item? There’s no way that even smaller cafes could physically display all these images on a single menu board. 

So surely the only benefit of this would be for restaurants and takeaway chains that use ordering apps such as Uber Eats, where the customer can see unlimited images when browsing through a menu.

Lunchbox itself is also first and foremost a restaurant management technology platform that enables diners to place orders with participating restaurants, just like Postmates or Door Dash. And being a startup company working with only 200 brands, it has the freedom to experiment with how it operates. 

What’s clear is that the reach of AI-generated images is growing almost daily – and with it, so are the repercussions. 

• You may also be interested in the best camera for food photography, as well as these 10 tasty food photography tips, plus the best books on food photography to help you up your game in preparation for the Pink lady food photographer of the Year 2023. 

© William L. Clements Library
Jubilee singers at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee, pose for promotional photograph, circa 1871.

Frederick Douglass is perhaps best known as an abolitionist and intellectual. But he was also the most photographed American of the 19th century. And he encouraged the use of photography to promote social change for Black equality.

In that spirit, this article – using images from the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan – examines different ways Black Americans from the 19th century used photography as a tool for self-empowerment and social change.

Black studio portraits

© William L. Clements Library
Cabinet card portraits of African Americans from the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography. Left: Man with Pipe, circa 1887. Right: Woman in Silk Dress, circa 1888.

Speaking about how accessible photography had become during his time, Douglass once stated: “What was once the special and exclusive luxury of the rich and great is now the privilege of all. The humblest servant girl may now possess a picture of herself such as the wealth of kings could not purchase fifty years ago.”

To pose for a photograph became an empowering act for African Americans. It served as a way to counteract racist caricatures that distort facial features and mocked Black society. African Americans in urban and rural settings participated in photography to demonstrate dignity in the Black experience.

The first successful form of photography was the daguerreotype, an image printed on polished silver-plated copper. The invention of carte de visite photographs, followed by cabinet cards, changed the culture of photography because the process allowed photographers to print images on paper. Cartes de visite are portraits the size of a business card with several copies printed on a single sheet. The change from printing images on metal to printing on paper made them more affordable to produce, and anyone could commission a portrait.

Collecting kinship: Arabella Chapman albums

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Arabella Chapman poses for a portrait from her public carte de visite album, circa 1878 – 1880s.

During Victorian times, it was fashionable for people to exchange cartes de visite with loved ones and collect them from visitors.

Arabella Chapman, an African American music teacher from Albany, New York, assembled two cartes de visite photo albums. The first was a private album of family pictures, while the other featured friends and political figures for public viewing. The creation of each book allowed Chapman to store and share her photographs as intimate keepsakes.

Innovative entrepreneurs: The Goodridge Brothers

© William L. Clements Library
Children stare at the burned remains from the Washington Street fire, circa 1870s. David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography.

When photography became a viable business, African Americans started their own photography studios in different locations across the country. The Goodridge Brothers established one of the earliest Black photography studios in 1847. The business, opened first in York, Pennsylvania, moved to Saginaw, Michigan in 1863.

The brothers – Glenalvin, Wallace and William – were known for producing studio portraits using a variety of photographic techniques. They also produced documentary photography printed on stereo cards to create 3D images.

Saginaw, Michigan, was an expanding settlement, and the brothers photographed new buildings in the town. They also documented natural disasters in the area. Photographers would capture 3D images of fires, floods and other destructive occurrences to record the impact of the event before the town rebuilt the area.

Documenting communities: Harvey C. Jackson

© William L. Clements Library
Burning the Mortgage of the Phyllis Wheatley Home in Detroit, Michigan, on Jan. 4, 1915. By Harvey C. Jackson. David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography.

The development of Black photography studios allowed communities greater control to style images that authentically reflected Black life. Harvey C. Jackson established Detroit’s first Black-owned photography studio in 1915. He collaborated with communities to create cinematic scenes of important events. In one photo, Jackson documents a mortgage-burning celebration at the Phyllis Wheatley Home, established in 1897. Its mission was to improve the status of Black women and the elderly by providing lodging and services.

Mortgage-burning ceremonies are a tradition churches observe to commemorate their last mortgage payment. Harvey Jackson documented this occasion with each person holding a string attached to the mortgage to connect each person in burning the document.

African Americans’ engagement with photography in the 19th century began a tradition for Black photographers’ use of photography today to promote social change. African Americans, whether they are in front or behind the camera, create empowering images that define the beauty and resilience contained within the Black experience.

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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Samantha Hill is affiliated with the Society of American Archivists