When I opened up my email from a PR company with an image of a TV brand’s latest product, I didn’t expect to see floating objects, a woman with six fingers and a man with his bare hands hovering over a burning hot grill – but maybe that’s what we should come to expect in the age of AI-generated images.

An industry that once featured polished real-life images with professional photographers, models, carefully crafted lighting and angles – the kind of shoots that might take an entire day – now looks like it’s in danger of being replaced by a landfill of rushed, lazy AI-generated imagery.

This press shot from TV brand Sylvox, supplied by PR company Network Four, appears to have been glanced at for maybe three seconds before being signed off.

This is their chance to showcase a new product and this is what they offer?

It’s nothing new to see glossy marketing shots of impossibly happy models grinning while using (or not actually using) products. But this is something else entirely. Is this really the future of press images?

Just so you can fully appreciate this masterpiece in all its AI glory, let’s break it down…

The laws of physics no longer apply here. A wine glass mysteriously hovers mid-air like some kind of magic trick.

At first glance, you might think there’s a neat row of drinks placed on a table. Look closer though and suddenly it’s an optical illusion – those huge glasses appear to be sitting on the floor.

Forget BBQ tongs, this AI-generated fella is casually reaching over a sizzling hot grill with his bare hands.

Obviously the TV is meant to be the main point of interest here, yet what’s on screen looks like some uncanny valley knock-off of baseball, cricket and Wii Sports mashed together.

And of course a favourite among AI…one of the people in the image has six fingers – why can it never get hands right?!

We’ll also give an honourable mention to the smoke swallowing half a woman’s body and the man sitting down with an eight-pack…I mean fair enough I suppose.

Sylvox and their PR did send through some updated images, including the one below. They’re clearly an improvement over the gravity defying glasses, surreal body horror and optical illusions, but they still look incredibly fake and overly photoshopped.

Of course this isn’t an isolated incident. ‘AI slop’ – an internet term for lazy, low-quality junk churned out by AI – has been doing the rounds for a while now.

Just look this example from University of Technology Sydney depicting the Harbour Bridge as an island.

Or this one from Microsoft showing an Xbox employee typing code…ON THE BACK of her monitor.

Or this monstrosity from the Queensland Symphony Orchestra displaying a wax looking couple with huge tangled fingers (again with the hands!).

A Photographer in 2023 even admitted his prize-winning image was AI-generated. Somehow I don’t think this one from Sylvox will be winning any awards.

It’s of course worth noting that we’re still at the beginning of this AI journey. A few years down the line AI may be able to generate images with much better quality and (perish the thought) take the jobs from photographers, models and graphic designers. But for now, we’re clearly not there.

If you’re a brand, maybe give it a second thought before chucking something through an AI generator, or at least give it a second look before publishing it.

Let’s just hope Sylvox’s TVs are better than their product images.

And just for comparison, I asked DALL·E to generate a shot of people gathered around a TV. It took 20 seconds. Honestly? I think it looks better than Sylvox’s release.