South Carolina Man Visits Food Truck In Greenville. Then He Sees Something Disturbing: ‘AI Food Slop’

A South Carolina man spotted a food truck in Greenville decked out in AI-image slop. Christian Cortes (@dionysian_bacchanal) was left gobsmacked after seeing a large display plastered on the side of the vendor's vehicle.

"AI Food slop has made it to Greenville," Cortes laments in a TikTok post featuring the so-bad-it's-hilarious artwork. The truck is for a business called The Egg Roll King. On the truck is an anthropomorphic egg roll, complete with '80s-era bodybuilder arms and a sleeveless Medieval-era king's robe.

A tilted crown rests on the fried food lord's head, along with a large medallion dangling across his crispy chest that reads "Egg Roll." Its face resembles handsome Squidward's, and he sits on a throne decorated with lion-face armrests.

Rounding out the kingly theme are two shrimp-humanoid guards holding spears, probably intoning that the business sells egg rolls containing the crustacean-based proteins. Beneath the Egg Roll Royal guardians are little minions all decked out in various outfits.

One of the underlings is rocking a Vietnamese style Nón lá (you know, those conical hats from Asia). Beside it is a mean-mugging little dude with a sombrero and another guy with an identical face sporting a cowboy hat. And right beneath the food truck's service window is yet another stinky-faced hench-roll sporting a samurai helmet.

Cortes didn't hide his dismay at the branding in a text overlay on his clip. He wondered why anyone would want to spend their money at a food truck that opts to not show pictures of the food it serves.

"This s**t don't make any sense ... why would I spend money at your business if you don't value me as a consumer enough to even put effort in marketing to me," he wrote. Additionally, he penned that the drawings "look crazy" and the business should "just take pictures of the food."

Folks who replied to his video shared his frustrations. One individual wrote: "words cannot describe how infuriating the AL slop epidemic is."

Someone else shared a picture of a different food truck that seems to have utilized AI-generated imagery.

The signage is for a seller called "Mad Hogg BBQ," which depicts an image of a biker pig with its back turned towards the customer. Like the Egg Roll King, it's also a humanoid creature who clearly doesn't skip arm day.

The swine also doesn't look like it skips glute day either, as it has a massive derrière it's happily slapping while grinning toward its consumers. Others lamented the use of AI-generated images by responding with photos they took of food items that are visibly not genuine, like this one that shows off an assortment of sandwiches that have the texture of "Fantastic Four's" The Thing.

Someone else who replied to Cortes' video said they've even seen tattoo artists at an ink convention using AI-generated banners to call attention to their work. They were perplexed. "Went to a tattoo convention yesterday and the amount of artists that had AI slop banners ... was disappointing. Like you are literally artists and gonna use AI instead?" they penned.

The big question, raised by food-centric outlet Ravenous, is whether using AI-generated images to market meals can fall into the territory of false advertising.

Laura Smith, legal director for Truth in Advertising, spoke with the outlet regarding these concerns.

Smith says that her group receives "a lot of consumer tips about images that don't look like the food product they received."

She says the legalities surrounding these consumer complaints fall into one of two categories: "puffery" and "reasonable consumer standard."

The former term refers to an advertising practice that fast-food diners will be all too familiar with, as will fans of this scene from "Falling Down." This phrase, employed by Smith, refers to the act of creating an idealistic version of a food item for marketing purposes.

For example, when the burger you receive doesn't look anything like the image promoting it. However, the latter term speaks to images that sell an item that grossly misrepresents what it is. I.e., if a cheeseburger with a sesame seed bun is advertised as having two patties and bacon. Then you only get a single patty on a plain bun without any indication that those add-ons must be requested specifically or cost extra.

Smith does note, however, that there hasn't been any widespread legislation pertaining to AI-Slop imagery in promoting food. "The Supreme Court hasn't weighed in on these food imagery issues, so they've really been deciding on a court by court basis," she told Ravenous.

You can view Cortes' post here, and below is a snippet of the image that got him up in arms.