Airport Says it Will Remove Giant AI Slop Billboard Featuring Fake Photographers
Manchester Airport in the U.K. says it is removing a photography-themed billboard after it was mocked for being AI slop.
Thom Rylance, frontman of the popular band The Lottery Winners, posted an amusing video on the band’s social media channels, pointing out the glaring errors in the image and questioning why Manchester Airport isn’t using real human creatives in their campaigns.
The series of ads is for Manchester Airport itself, and they show groups of tourists with cameras around their necks. But closer inspection reveals nightmarish details like one man’s fingers that appear elongated, twisted, and unnatural.
“This is a giant billboard at Manchester Airport,” says Rylance. “It’s such bad AI. Look at this picture here, look at this photographer, riddle me this, whose hand is that on the camera?”
The cameras also have garbled text where the brand name is supposed to go; AI image generators notoriously struggle with text and hands.
In another image showing a group of photographers looking at a map, one of the characters is holding a bag with “Kobak Pomtoe” emblazoned on the side. It’s likely meant to say Kodak, but it beggars belief that someone thought this was acceptable to print billboard size.
“Manchester Airport makes $1.3 billion a year,” Rylance says in the video. “You’re telling me they couldn’t afford a photographer and some models for this?”
Manchester Airport tells the Manchester Evening News that it was already aware of the issue, and is planning to remove it.
“No excuse for big organizations to use sh**** AI images,” writes one person who got over 4,000 likes. “Kobak Pomtoe is our favorite camera retailer, actually,” adds Canon Europe Pro.
Just earlier today, PetaPixel reported on a rise in photographers dealing with clients who are coming up with shoot ideas and altering photos using generative AI tools.
Just how far the corporate world will go with AI remains an open question, but seeing enormous billboards with obvious errors in them out in the wild makes it seem like a professional creative didn’t cast their eye over the image before it was published on a giant canvas.
