Uber Eats is stuffing AI slop into your meal

Uber Eats has added a slate of AI features designed to, theoretically, help merchants earn new customers and ease the shopping experience for users.

AI-enhanced food images are intended to make dishes more appealing by improving photos uploads. In the press release, Uber Eats shows an example in which pictures captured very close to the food are transformed into wider field-of-view shots of plated dishes. Because the tool creates portions of the image that were not there before, its accuracy remains to be seen.

Menu descriptions will also get the AI treatment with the idea being to ensure their accuracy so that customers feel more confident in what they're ordering. It will also summarize restaurant reviews, with the goal of highlighting areas for improvement as well as strengths. Much like the generated images, the jury is still out on if these tools will be useful, or another vector for hallucinations.

Uber is inviting users to send photos of delivered food for items that lack menu images. Customers in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom can earn $3 in Uber Cash for their pictures.

"Live order chat" will finally allow merchants to initiate conversations directly with customers once an order has been placed.

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