Video Includes Sound
Motion Graphics Collage made in After Effects. Original Music and Sound Effects made in Logic Pro.
Spring 2026, Thesis II
With this project, I wanted to circle back to
what originally inspired me to choose food as
a topic: the prevalence of generative AI recipes
online. My criticisms of GenAI in food reflect
my criticisms of GenAI as a design tool as well. It
lacks intentionality, purpose, history and lived
experience. There was all in the culinary arts
both in their own ways rely on the system of
repeated trial and error with user feedback and
experience shaping them in a feedback loop
this loop ensures that both food and design are
centered around human beings. When humans
are removed from the equation as it’s the case
with GenAI we drift away from what makes
those things meaningful in the first place. What
use is a recipe that no one has ever tasted or a
piece of design work that had never been viewed
in the process of its creation?
Food and design are both extensions of the
human desire for connection and capacity to
experience the connection through material
and visual objects. When somebody tells a
family recipe they aren’t just saying that it’s
something that belongs to them. It’s something
that is sacred. When you cook something from
a recipe by someone that came before you,
especially someone who you know, you’re having
parallel experiences to them. Cooking a recipe
writting by somebody else allows you to step
into their shoes and feel a sense of comradery.
On the other side of the coin, GenAI recipes
are isolating and individualistic to a harmful
degree. When everything is customized to
everyone’s individual experiences you don’t get
to engage with experiences that are outside of
your typical range. You wouldn’t get to learn
from the cultures of others or expand your taste.
My criticisms of GenAI recipes don’t boil down
to “they are bad and human made recipes are
good.” Even if GenAI recipes were just as good as
human made, ones my point still stands. GenAI
recipes don’t come from anywhere, anytime,
any place. Instead of GenAi, use intentionality
when you’re picking what’s for dinner.