More than 70 thousand followers on Instagram, official website and beautiful shared photos. Too bad they are all fake. But most followers don’t realize this (and complain: “It’s impossible to book”).
Beautiful website, beautiful Instagram profile, aesthetically perfect photos. Maybe too much. actually Ethos, the restaurant that posts photos like the one you see above, doesn’t exist. But it was created entirely by artificial intelligence. Looks good The account is @ethos_atx, In fact, you can notice some specific details: for example the images of the chefs, who have that typical platform for creating images captured using artificial intelligence, as well as having huge sausages or giant prawns in their hands. Not to mention From the sitewhere there are all the classic pages that we can find in real restaurants – from dishes to articles – and it is unfortunate that the reservations page contains this wording: “Booking begins at 4:30 a.m. on the first Monday of the month.” There are no phone numbers or emails, just a document to fill out to request a table. And one last piece of information that is as important as it is expensive, the General Director: The elusive “Giuseppe Fuseli”.
Guests also include Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk
In short, a fairly attentive eye immediately understands that something is strange. Instead, many people, perhaps three of the more than 70,000 who follow Ethos on Instagram, are convinced the photos are real. And indeed They comment and like dishes containing hippos and dinosaurs or pictures of alleged Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder and Blue Origin CEO, editor.) Guest at the restaurant. “One of our chefs is a close friend of Jeff,” the caption accompanying the post read. The photo is really very retouched, and there are other details that should not be underestimated, The real Bezos was not mentioned in the post. In an old post, Elon Musk also appears intent on pouring a beer: “Toast to innovation, inspiration and unforgettable moments!”, we read in the text of the post.
For fun or to make money?
This fake restaurant has been on Instagram for over a year and is still full of photos that are able to grab people’s attention Passionate about cooking, but also about social trends. Hippo brioche, for example, was inspired by moo ding, the small specimen of the dwarf hippopotamus that quickly spread (we talked about it here) in Thailand and now around the world. But why would you create a fake restaurant, website, and social account? Many AI experts have asked themselves how Justine Moore, who started posting Ethos photos on X To prove her lie. “Maybe it’s just to make fun of us,” one user wrote. “Then they sell followers to other profiles?” asks another. Moore herself admits that she studied arithmetic for an hour but “Without understanding how they could monetize this project.”
There is also a trade (which works)
Another way to make money is to sell something through your profile, which then becomes a showcase to attract potential buyers. In fact, among Ethos’ most recent posts, there’s a photo of a t-shirt. Looking at the “merchandise” section of the site and the profile, you actually land on a real page where they are located Prints, hats and t-shirts that you can purchase. We ran a test and in fact I got to the checkout page. But for everything else, As Gizmodo wrote, It is almost impossible to contact the restaurant.
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