AI food pictures look less real, study finds

Scientists in Germany have tested how people see pictures of food made by AI^*1. They found that people think AI pictures look less real than photos of real food. People also want to eat the food in AI pictures less. The study was published in the journal^*2 Scientific Reports on August 15.

The research team was led by Alexander Diel. The team works at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the LVR University Hospital Essen in Germany.

The team did an online test with 87 people. Each person looked at 60 pairs of pictures. In each pair, one picture was a photo of real food. The other picture was made by AI. For each picture, people answered four questions. How real does it look? How much do you want to eat it? How many calories^*3 does it have? How healthy is it?

The AI pictures got lower scores for looking real. People also said they wanted to eat the food in the AI pictures less. But for the other two questions, there was no difference. People gave the same scores for calories and for how healthy the food looked.

The team also found one more thing. Sometimes an AI picture looked even more real than the real photo. When that happened, people gave the AI picture higher scores. They said the food looked healthier, and they wanted to eat it more. So when an AI picture looks extremely real, people rate the food higher.

1. *1 AI: computer programs that can make pictures, text, and other things by themselves
2. *2 journal: a magazine where scientists print their studies
3. *3 calories: a measure of how much energy is in food