Why AI food looks like that: donut shrimp, brain-like ice cream and other slop

The Verge AI · rss · 2026-09-04

The Verge surveys the flood of unappetizing AI-generated food images now used by restaurants, cafes and brands: donut shrimp, wormlike noodles, construction-material ice cream and hole-riddled burritos.

The piece explains the typical failure modes of diffusion models on food imagery—mangled textures and implausible structures—making these promo images an object lesson in what not to do with AI marketing.

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