Just Eat apologises for AI food mistakes after social media ridicule

**Just Eat apologises for AI food mistakes after social media ridicule**

A chip muffin and bacon and egg soda - menu items well known in parts of the UK, but not to the AI which made this

Just Eat has apologised after it was mocked online over a string of errors in AI-generated images for some of its restaurants’ food items.

The online food delivery platform had been testing the technology to display dishes that did not yet have photos - but not every result went as intended.

Instead, the AI produced a number of strange creations, from bacon and eggs floating in a glass of cola - a mix-up between "soda" and "soda bread" - to chips sticking out of muffins.

A Just Eat spokesperson said the company was "in the process of removing" the incorrect images, and would stop creating more until the AI had been developed further.

Salt and pepper chips usually involves frying chips with onions, garlic and chillies - a little bit more exciting than this suggests

"We work with tens of thousands of small restaurants on their food imagery, including funding professional local photographers," the spokesperson told the BBC.

"We've been trialling AI-enhanced images, and as with any new technology, it isn't always quite right the first time."

What some parts of Manchester call a "chip muffin" - also known as a chip butty - causing the AI to invent a dish which seemingly involved baking potato into bread

The episode underlines the challenges companies can still encounter when using AI to speed up or simplify work processes, particularly when it is used to interpret words in a specific context.

Members of the Just Eat UK subreddit have been flocking to the site over the past few days to share the latest unintentionally funny versions of takeaway food items.

Any image generated using AI on the delivery app appears with a label showing that, and the BBC has seen many of the more unusual interpretations still live on menus.

A "cheese roll" was inexplicably turned into sushi

A Belfast cafe, meanwhile, had its bacon and egg soda bread dish shown as a glass of fizzy drink with a cooked egg and bacon floating in it.

Spelling mistakes on menu items have sometimes added to the confusion, with the Instagram account @uknewestfoods posting a picture of garlic bread shaped like a plane - presumably because of a misspelling of the word "plain".

Meanwhile, a "cheese roll" - bread and cheese - instead became slabs of cheese rolled into a sushi roll.

While some on social media said they found the images "hilarious", another was less taken with the AI-generated dishes, saying: "Well, that lot just helped my diet".

Meanwhile, one person on Instagram, external questioned why customers would ever want to see AI images of a restaurant's food even if they were closer to the real thing.

"I want to see what the dish actually looks like as it helps me decide who to order from or what to order," they said.

"These 'perfect' AI versions just lead to disappointment if that's what you think your meal will look like."