As a fellow Moo Deng superfan, I cooed when saw the photo of a cute little croissant made in her image. Oh, what I would have given to be able to visit Ethos, a restaurant that claims to be the best in Austin, Texas, and pay homage to the Internet’s hippo in bread form.
Turns out I don’t have to give that much, because the Moo Deng croissant doesn’t exist. Neither does Ethos. The entire restaurant and its creations were created by AI—and whoever made it seems to be having a kick that people are talking about it (again).
Now, before you start saying you would never fall for this, beware: I had to do a fair bit of digging to figure out this was fake. And that's concerning for all of us.
A fake AI restaurant with 73,000 Instagram followers
Ethos appears to have arrived on Instagram in March 2023, which is the date of the oldest post available. Its Instagram is characterized by vibrant and extravagant pictures of food purportedly made at its restaurant. Its “creations” include a bouquet of cinnamon rolls and flowers (45,000 likes), a donut with a real piece of honeycomb on top (17,000 likes), and a croissant in the shape of a dinosaur (994,000 likes), among many others.
There are few details that would identify Ethos as an AI-generated profile at first glance. The profile features pinned stories of the restaurant's dishes, awards and mentions in the press, and photos of its purported staff at work. All things that a normal and real Instagram profile for a restaurant would have. The thing that most stands out is its lack of an address or phone number, which seems a bit strange if it's Austin’s number one restaurant.
Over on its website, which declares the restaurant to be the “home of unreal flavors,” there are blog posts, a merch store, and a section for reservations. In short, it looks like your typical restaurant website. The photos for the blogs are a bit fishy and look obviously AI-generated, but that could be written off as the restaurant just experimenting with AI. There is no address for Ethos or a phone number on the site, either, and a Google search for its address brings up no results.
The smoking gun
While not including an address or a phone number on your Instagram profile or website is definitely suspicious, the fake restaurant tries to justify it when you get to its reservations page. Apparently, the Ethos restaurant is hot. In fact, it’s so popular that it only opens reservations at 4:30 a.m. the first Monday of every month.
And here is where you’ll find the smoking gun. After trying to make a reservation, the Ethos site redirects you to a site called eelslap.com. It includes an interactive web element of a man who you can slap with an eel when you slide your mouse across the screen. At the bottom of the page, there is a small “made by” button, which directs you to the website of Act Normal, an advertising agency in Sweden. One of its projects is, unsurprisingly, eelslap.com.
According to Act Normal, that is indeed supposed to be an eel.
According to Act Normal’s website, Eelslap.com started off as a game between friends where “you got to slap people with different kinds of fish.”
“It definitely sounds a lot more fun than it actually was,” Act Normal says, adding that the website suddenly exploded in popularity and to date has received more than 30 million visits. “The Internet is a crazy place, kids. A crazy place.”
An experiment, an ad, a joke?
After all that, you would think that the purpose of Ethos would be clear. It's obviously an ad for Act Normal, right? Perhaps the agency created it as a way to show prospective clients all it could do with a business that didn’t even exist. Just imagine what it could do with a real business.
The agency claims that it’s worked with adidas, EA Sports, Sony, and Disney, among others. In 2016, for example, Act Normal helped adidas launch a campaign for its NMD shoe line that allowed fans to share photos of their shoes, which were projected on the giant cubes.
However, it appears that Act Normal has never taken credit for Ethos, which is a little strange if it wanted the project to serve as self-promotion. I couldn’t find any mention of Ethos on the agency’s website.
Let's say then that it was an experiment or a joke. Well, OK. It proved that humans can easily be fooled by AI and become fans of a restaurant that doesn’t even exist. But it’s been more than a year and half. That’s a pretty long time to keep the joke going.
It’s also not like the fact that Ethos was an AI restaurant was a huge secret. Local outlets pointed out that Ethos was fake last year, and Gizmodo reported on it in March. Reddit users have also been calling out the restaurant for being fake for a while.
“I'm just waiting for the ‘I've been to Ethos’ update post from someone,” a user wrote on Reddit in May 2023.
“Imagine wasting gallons of water for this”
Interest in the Ethos seems to fluctuate, with some new post or another popping up every few months. That’s what happened this week, when it was written up by tech reporter Taylor Lorenz and Forbes. Some Instagram users haven't been amused at finding out that Ethos wasn’t real. Comments on recent publications slam the AI-created restaurant, with some questioning why AI can be used in this way, and others making outrageous claims.
“the owner of this restaurant ran over my grandma with their delivery truck and when asked for insurance they just threw raw chicken at us 😞 don’t eat here!!” a user wrote on Monday.
Another user pointed the finger at Guiseppe Fusilli, the fake restaurant’s purported fake owner.
“I got horrendous food poisoning here and when I told the owner he threatened my life. The cops won't take it seriously because Giuseppe Fusilli, the owner of ethos, has ties to the mayor,” the comment read. “He came to my house and smashed my fine china, cut holes in my furniture, and beat me with a comically large hammer. Do not support Giuseppe, do not eat his poisonous foods. Stay safe out there.”
The last laugh
At the end of the day, it seems like whoever is behind the Ethos account gets the last laugh. While the reservation system is nonexistent, the merch section of the site seems to actually work. It’s powered by Stripe and takes you to a checkout screen, though I didn’t buy anything.
Overall, this is a story of people who knew just what to post and what say to make a fake AI restaurant click with audiences. Finding out it was fake isn’t as easy as it looks, highlighting that in the world of AI, you either do your due diligence or get slapped in the face by an eel.
Images | Ethos
Related | South Korea Recycles 97% of Its Food Waste. The Key: Either Pay to Recycle or Get Fined
View 0 comments