In the enchanting realm of artificial intelligence, where innovation meets imagination, a deceptive story unfolds. It happened in Glasgow, Scotland, where the stage was set for “Willy’s Chocolate Experience,” an event shrouded in promise and painted by the brushstrokes of AI-generated appeal.
Hosted by a company called House of Illuminati, it invited families into a world designed by algorithms, only to reveal an empty warehouse adorned with drab decor. As the curtain rises on this curious episode, it highlights not only the disappointments of a chocolate fantasy gone wrong, but it also delves into the surreal landscape of AI in marketing.
Organizers of the “prank” event charged attendees for the so-called “immersive experience,” based on the Warner Bros. film. Each ticket cost £35, or almost Rs 3,700. Here’s how it worked out.
How AI was used for deceptive marketing
The event marketed using AI-generated imagery promised to create a remarkable fusion of surreal elements, such as towering mushrooms, abundant candy canes, rivers of chocolate flowing from fountains and an audio-visual display extravagant.
Instead of real photos, the website featured vibrant AI-generated illustrations and promised “fantastic chocolate,” “magical surprises,” and “optical wonders.”
To add to the spectacle, the eccentric Oompa-Loompas, the little orange-clad workers at Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, were to narrate the entire experience with their unique dance routines.
Arriving at the scene, the families discovered the event was taking place in an industrial area of Glasgow. The setting was a sparsely decorated warehouse with a few plastic props, a bouncy castle, and wallpaper as a backdrop, as reported The Guardian.
One of the actors hired for the event alleged that the company behind the event used AI to compose the storyline for the event. The script reportedly included nonsensical phrases and introduced strange characters not found in the original books or associated films.
The actor, who spoke to The independentsaid he was hired at the very last minute and sent a script that was “15 pages of AI-generated gibberish of him just monologuing these crazy things.”
Eventually, complaints were officially filed against the organizers, who have now promised to fully refund customers within 10 days.
AI and the illusions of marketing
The chaos of ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience’ highlights the minimal hurdles involved in deploying deceptive marketing for the sole purpose of profit and how effectively AI can potentially streamline the execution of such scams .
This is not the first time that AI images have been used to create a misleading perception. Apparently, Uber Eats used AI-generated images of food from restaurants without photos, and some depictions were found to be inaccurate.
In New York, a pizza is commonly called a pie, which posed a challenge to AI image generators trained on fruit pies. Therefore, when a city pizzeria advertised “half buffalo chicken and half BBQ chicken pie” on Uber Eats, the AI generated an image of a savory pastry, deviating significantly from the actual pizza proposed.
A recent survey conducted by 404 Media looked at the use of AI by ghost kitchens. These are delivery-only restaurants that often rely on other restaurants to prepare their meals and promote their offerings through other platforms. The report focused on how AI is used to generate images of their menu items.
The report notes: “In these cases, ghost kitchens show people images of food that literally don’t exist and look nothing like the actual items they sell, sometimes because the faulty AI is physically producing food impossible. »