If you’ve seen a recent advertisement for food that you found unsettling rather than appealing, artificial intelligence may be to blame. It turns out, AI-generated images of food can often make people feel uneasy rather than being appealing.

[N]ew research, set to be published this month in the journal Appetite, found that AI-generated images of food that are nearly but not quite realistic are off-putting to many people. The study showed 38 AI-generated images of food to 95 participants and had them rate the images on eeriness, warmth and realism. Some of the images were realistic, some were imperfect (mostly realistic), some were unrealistic and some were of rotten food.

Participants found the realistic and unrealistic food images to be the most pleasant. The imperfect images, which looked almost real but something was just slightly off, were rated as the most unsettling. [F]ood advertisers may want to steer clear for the time being when even the slightest visual mistake or inconsistency can take an image from appealing to disturbing.

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