Facepalm: They say AI-generated images are becoming harder to spot, but that's not always the case. A recent Instagram ad for outdoor gear retail giant REI Co-op, for example, included a bike with handlebars at both the front and rear. But the company is placing the blame for this slop squarely on Meta.
As you can see in the post below, REI's promotional ad for the Van Rysel EDR AF bike appears to show too many chains, blurry lettering, and the unique feature of dual front and rear handlebars.
Rather than being rideable in both directions, this is, of course, another bizarre AI creation.
The ad had been up for a week before being taken down on June 22, plenty of time for users to fill the comments section with the expected vitriol, made even sharper by REI's outdoor/environmental focus.
Interestingly, fitness model Amity Rockwell later posted the image, revealing the woman in the ad was generated from her likeness.
Rockwell had been hired for a photo shoot a few months earlier in which a Van Rysel bike was used. The sight of an AI-generated ad left her bewildered.
"The thing is, this was an official shoot. That I got hired for," Rockwell wrote. "So why are they Al deep frying the images? To alter a product they're supposedly selling? And my face along with it? lol. I'm so lost."
Van Rysel North America confirmed that the original image came from its photo shoot with Rockwell, but any later images were not made by the bike firm.
The ad ended up on Reddit, where someone claiming to be an REI employee wrote that the retailer "is absolutely obsessed with AI now." That certainly doesn't make it unique – it's harder to find a company that doesn't fit that description these days.
But REI wasn't the one that decided an AI ad was a good idea. "Meta auto-enrolled us in an AI personalization tool that produced an inaccurate and inappropriate alteration of a vendor-provided image in some of our ads," an REI spokesperson said in a statement.
The firm jokingly added that "While a two-handled bike might be interesting, it is not something you will find in our assortment."
Meta admits in the terms for its generative AI ad tools that outputs can be "inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, offensive, and/or inappropriate" and that it's up to advertisers to check the ads before they go live.
Unsurprisingly, REI says it has now unenrolled from Meta's generative AI ad program, adding that it does not align with the company's values. It also apologized for the confusion undoubtedly caused by seeing a bike with two sets of handlebars.