[Planktonne]

If you're really passionate about serving the best quality coffee, you'll be passionate about the experience around that, and you'll put effort in even if it doesn't pay off.

AI-generated art signals that you didn't put effort in, and so aren't passionate about the experience, and so aren't really passionate about the central thing.

"At least you tried" is not a high standard, but it's the one that AI art fails.

[buellerbueller]

>If you're really passionate about serving the best quality coffee, you'll be passionate about the experience around that

The degree to which the menu is part of "the experience around that" is exactly the debate here; you can't just claim it as axiomatic.

>AI-generated art signals that you didn't put effort in,

or it signals you spend your time sourcing the best beans, understanding the climate of the various bean producing regions, reading trade news for the coffee industry, ...

>"At least you tried" is not a high standard, but it's the one that AI art fails.

Again, says you

[moron4hire]

I've thought about the specific example of distorted menu photos before as well and to me it also signals intelligence level in the proprietor. I can't imagine myself in that position, looking at that and saying, "yup, that's good." And I also have a hard time imagining not understanding why it looks bad, what one could have done to not make it bad. It feels like a distinct decision to be lazy.

And like you said, if they are that careless and unadept at one thing, how are they going to work the intricacies of an espresso machine and food safety standards? Not that an espresso machine is that hard to operate, but surely it's more difficult than maintaining the aspect ratio of a photo. You don't even need to know the term "aspect ratio" to get it right.

But I also have to admit that my expectations seem to be very off on this specific issue. My wife is quite intelligent (actual, literal genius) and even quite artsy, and yet I had to teach her how to not resize photos incorrectly, both for aspect ratio and quality by resizing too large. It's seems like such an easy thing to see and figure out to me. This must be how my 10 year old sees my chess play.

[icambron]

I think generally the opposite is true. A place with bad coffee but great decor can charge the same as a place with good coffee but crappy everything else. And so to maximize profitability, it does just that, meaning that at any price level, the place with the worst non-coffee has the best coffee. If you judge them by their posters, then what you’re paying for is the posters.

I think people complaining about AI art at businesses are making an aesthetic argument and then laundering it into ones with more heft. I mostly agree with the aesthetic argument, but it’s only that, not some wider indictment.

[vladms]

While I agree with the general sentiment (people not putting effort is a bad signal), I also think people are sometimes being too harsh. Everybody has limited time and resources and knowledge. Making something (a business, a book, a website, etc.) means making some trade-offs with the resources you got.

When I can easily (without lots of effort/resources) check the quality of something, I prefer not to be that influenced by this type of "bad signals". Think of buying a coffee or trying a sandwich place. When I make a big investment, like a laptop or a TV, yes then it is a different story.

[dosisking]

I think you're making a lot of assumptions that don't really hold up in reality.

[Planktonne]

I disagree, but it's also academic. Even if every single one of my assumptions is unfair, they're still being made by me and others. Restaurants need to consider the reputational risk caused by customer perception. There's a whole film about it [1].

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382932/

[buellerbueller]

>Even if every single one of my assumptions is unfair, they're still being made by me and others.

stomps feet in anger "Daddy, I want a squirrel! Get me one of those squirrels! I want a trained squirrel!"

[Planktonne]

Wrong film.

[zeratax]

sure i guess, but some of the best food i've ever eaten was in some cheap chinese restaurant that didnt care at all about the "experience" or w/e ^^

[icantevenhold]

Yea I don’t get the GP/OP sentiment at all.

Some of the best food I ate in places that looked like complete design wrecks. And yes now these places use a lot of really badly made ai art.

The food is still delicious.

[Planktonne]

I think there's a difference between passively and actively putting no thought into something; generating a menu with AI involves deciding that it's worth having but that you don't care about the quality.

[dosinga]

I don't know. This reply is AI generated and I really care