I think we use all our senses out in the real world when choosing some place to eat. Seeing the people who eat there is certainly one factor. Online maybe too if we look at the food pictures, read how the items are worded, look at a restaurant website and read the reviews we can get a sense of the types of people it appeals to. It's probably not the primary factor, but it is one attribute. There are anecdotal reports of establishments paying PR professionals (e.g. good looking models) to be there - and obviously they will use them for their promotional material.
It's good to listen and notice how one is being influenced. The real mistake is thinking we do not judge at all.
With that said, only looking at a rating of profile pictures of reviews to judge a restaurant is very funny and becomes art. Kudos to the creator.
The app is cool, but the argument there was either written by AI or there is a lost in translation moment because it doesn’t really make any sense.
In your argument you’re basically saying “it’s impossible to know what affects your choice of where to eat. Some think looks matter even pay for it; ergo, we must consider it too”
What about music type? Worker’s uniform color? Thinking “I wanna eat where the hot people are” is… I don’t know.. Odd?
> Thinking “I wanna eat where the hot people are” is… I don’t know.. Odd?
Well my response was to the question "Does anyone do this for restaurants?" and tried to answer it by saying "yes, many people may consider it along with other factors"
Yes, I agree it is superficial and odd to consciously and only think it. But we choose things with a range of subconscious influences, multiple reasons. Yes, uniforms and music could also be influences too. We could stop and spend time examining our thoughts and feelings to identify all the factors but generally people don't do that do they? :-)
And if you think about bars... it becomes commonplace for some people. "I want to drink where the hot people are" seems to be a very commonplace thought, or at least a thought which is encouraged by the marketing of bars.
Thinking wider now, we can ponder why do many places hire attractive people in their marketing photos? We humans are more superficial and less rational than we would like to admit to ourselves.
Personally I prefer real ale so will drink where the beer is better, but if I'm on a date where my friend doesn't appreciate beer as much, I will choose a nicer feeling and looking establishment over the beer quality. The people inside the place might or might not influence that choice to a greater or lesser extent. It is at the very least a factor. For a restaurant I think it's less of a factor.
Female Picks:
------------------------------------------------
1. Big Apple Brunch | Hell's Kitchen | 9.2/10
2. Pietro Nolita | Nolita | 8.6/10
3. Kanü Bar|Grill | Hamilton Heights | 8.5/10
4. STK Steakhouse Downtown | West Village | 8.2/10
5. Lighthouse Fish Market | East Harlem | 8.2/10
Male Picks:
------------------------------------------------
1. Lahori Kabab | Kips Bay | 2.3/10
2. Big Arc Chicken | East Village | 2.5/10
3. Hop Won Express | Midtown East | 3.1/10
4. Subway | Hell's Kitchen | 3.1/10
5. Nica Trattoria | Upper East Side | 3.1/10
It's probably more like "interested in social media" -> more likely to have a very good shot of you as your profile pic -> more likely to be considered attractive.
So perhaps this is really just searching for restaurants that people into social media review.
I really do think it's in earnest. I think the author is trying to justify its existence as "already a part of reality". I think it's quite despicable actually.
I think there's a category of these kinds of things where you apply AI to do something humans could do, but could not be bothered to do. Or could not profitably do. At least no human would categorize all these reviews just for lols.
Another recent example from HN would be that site which just lists hotel rooms that have a desk and a chair. It would be an incredibly dull task for a human to look at a million hotel room pictures and just select if they have a desk or not.
What else somewhat useful/fun could we do applying perhaps a little worse than human attention at something, but a lot of it?
took only a few checks for me to come to the conclusion that the setup has the age-old heavy bias towards beauty standards. I.e., if customers are black or Asian, hotness ranking goes down.
No, the setup doesn’t. It’s aggregating people’s behaviors and preferences. People appear to have a preference; whether it’s good or bad, natural or ingrained, or some combination thereof, is a matter for discussion.
I can go into an art gallery but I may not touch the works. Often there aren't physical barriers but we all understand some behaviours are not acceptable.
Similarly, publication of an image on the internet is not implicit permission to use it for any possible purpose, however technically feasible. For example, deepfakes.
If you draw a mustache on a drawing in an art gallery, you ruin the original for everyone else. If you take the drawing home, no one else has the original any more.
If I download, copy, or edit images sent to my computer, the original is still there.
The artist puts their art on the gallery with the intent that people will enter that gallery and look at it without touching. The image uploaders uploads the image with the intent that a copy (not the original) gets sent to our computers when we look at Google Reviews.
- Drawing a mustache on the art = Vandalizing the original data (not what's happening).
- Taking the art home = Deleting the original data (also not what's happening).
- Scraping faces for an AI = Following visitors around the gallery, taking secret photos of them, and publishing a book that rates them by attractiveness.
The fact that the gallery is "public" does not make that behavior acceptable. The same is true here. "Publicly viewable" does not mean "publicly available for any use."
> Following visitors around the gallery, taking secret photos of them, and publishing a book that rates them by attractiveness.
Gallery visitors aren't publicly publishing gallery reviews with their pictures. This website doesn't go into restaurants and take pictures of the customers.
All the pictures here were attached to restaurant reviews by the person themselves with the expectation that the picture would be sent to others and be available to people not currently in the restaurant.
Honestly the answer is “most people didn’t really expect that to be a thing when they did that” add those to all the people who “didn’t know that I was giving it to everyone. I thought this was between me and.. like.. yelp and people in my city”
It’s very confusing to technical people, but plenty of people were (still are) confused by the concept of the internet. What do you think all those people posting private information on each other’s facebook walls were doing? They are on their computer talking to their family member. How is anybody else getting in here?
This is some old internet style shenanigans powered by modern technology.
I am here for it. I want more of this.
Until ot becomes a 4chan weaponized meme used by satirical fauxscists.
You can tell from the old google logo style as well haha
> But we judge places by the people who go there. We always have.
Does anyone do this for a restaurants? That's not something that ever really factored into my food habits
I think we use all our senses out in the real world when choosing some place to eat. Seeing the people who eat there is certainly one factor. Online maybe too if we look at the food pictures, read how the items are worded, look at a restaurant website and read the reviews we can get a sense of the types of people it appeals to. It's probably not the primary factor, but it is one attribute. There are anecdotal reports of establishments paying PR professionals (e.g. good looking models) to be there - and obviously they will use them for their promotional material.
It's good to listen and notice how one is being influenced. The real mistake is thinking we do not judge at all.
With that said, only looking at a rating of profile pictures of reviews to judge a restaurant is very funny and becomes art. Kudos to the creator.
The app is cool, but the argument there was either written by AI or there is a lost in translation moment because it doesn’t really make any sense.
In your argument you’re basically saying “it’s impossible to know what affects your choice of where to eat. Some think looks matter even pay for it; ergo, we must consider it too”
What about music type? Worker’s uniform color? Thinking “I wanna eat where the hot people are” is… I don’t know.. Odd?
> Thinking “I wanna eat where the hot people are” is… I don’t know.. Odd?
Well my response was to the question "Does anyone do this for restaurants?" and tried to answer it by saying "yes, many people may consider it along with other factors"
Yes, I agree it is superficial and odd to consciously and only think it. But we choose things with a range of subconscious influences, multiple reasons. Yes, uniforms and music could also be influences too. We could stop and spend time examining our thoughts and feelings to identify all the factors but generally people don't do that do they? :-)
And if you think about bars... it becomes commonplace for some people. "I want to drink where the hot people are" seems to be a very commonplace thought, or at least a thought which is encouraged by the marketing of bars.
Thinking wider now, we can ponder why do many places hire attractive people in their marketing photos? We humans are more superficial and less rational than we would like to admit to ourselves.
Personally I prefer real ale so will drink where the beer is better, but if I'm on a date where my friend doesn't appreciate beer as much, I will choose a nicer feeling and looking establishment over the beer quality. The people inside the place might or might not influence that choice to a greater or lesser extent. It is at the very least a factor. For a restaurant I think it's less of a factor.
OP might be The American Psycho
BusinessCardMapping.
There are places frequented by certain broad-shouldered gentlemen that I tend to avoid even though they serve pretty good food.
This feels like a “I do this dumb thing so everyone must do it” kind of bias that I frustratingly see expressed all the time.
It’s the average pilot thing. Nobody is the normal. Everyone’s life experience does not resemble a normal one.
Top 5 Restaurants (Female vs Male Preferences)
it looks like female => attractiveYour data is incorrect. That ranking is for male vs female (higher number = female).
The hot vs not score is a separate score. (e.g you have Big Arc chicken as a 2.5. That means mostly male. It's hotness score is 5.5)
It's probably more like "interested in social media" -> more likely to have a very good shot of you as your profile pic -> more likely to be considered attractive.
So perhaps this is really just searching for restaurants that people into social media review.
This was the first thing that stood out to me too.
I sampled quite some dark red markers, representing "attractive", and on the balance they're almost always overwhelmingly reviewed by females.
There were some exceptions though. Especially in the south west for Chinese cuisine.
I respect the novelty. It’s a meme idea, but the problem solving and coding is still legit as a quick and fun challenge.
Any details on how you managed to scrape the all mighty goog?
Just script a real browser with a chrome extension, and let it run kinda slowly overnight.
The rate limits are such that you can get tens of millions of data points just from a single browser.
OP may have used their own method, but I believe you could use a provider like SerpAPI.
I see a weird blue cluster north of Central Park, where according to the AI almost every restaurant has ugly patrons.
That cluster coincides with Harlem which has a majorly Black and Hispanic population and (I think) is generally lower-wealth.
Unintentional race and/or wealth/class bias in the model exposed here?
This is gross on multiple levels.
This appears to me to be intentional and ironic to make a point rather than in earnest.
I am interpreting this as a statement about snap judgements in an age where AI will increasingly play the role of a judge or assessor of humans.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems too on-the-nose to be serious.
EDIT:
> This website just puts reductive numbers on the superficial calculations we make every day
From the website. If it is in earnest then I’d be embarrassed to have shilled for it, because I agree that the idea is stupid and gross.
from their site https://walzr.com/
they made a fake steakhouse real for one night, got Twitter to verify a fake candidate for congress, etc. etc.
all signs point to art project.
I really do think it's in earnest. I think the author is trying to justify its existence as "already a part of reality". I think it's quite despicable actually.
I had a quasi physical reaction when reading the description. Not a good one.
I don’t remember hotornot being amongst asimovs 3 laws of robotics..is this really the future we deserve?
The author is gonna be vilified, but next year someone’s gonna come up with a cute name and a material design for this and gonna make bank.
I’m kinda curious to see what 1/10 people look like but these are real people right.
I agree. Just wrap this inside some opaque "AI recommendation algorithm" and tell no one what the AI is actually basing its recommendations on...
I see this as an art project. (And technical exploration, because I wonder how did they manage to scrape Google.)
It's made by the dude that has a lot of similarly strange and technologically impressive projects: https://walzr.com/
Nice try, restaurant owner with ugly people.
I have a feeling that so are you.
I think there's a category of these kinds of things where you apply AI to do something humans could do, but could not be bothered to do. Or could not profitably do. At least no human would categorize all these reviews just for lols.
Another recent example from HN would be that site which just lists hotel rooms that have a desk and a chair. It would be an incredibly dull task for a human to look at a million hotel room pictures and just select if they have a desk or not.
What else somewhat useful/fun could we do applying perhaps a little worse than human attention at something, but a lot of it?
NYT feature on this a few days ago
The Map Rating Restaurants Based on How Hot the Customers Are
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/dining/looksmapping-hot-c... (https://archive.ph/3ItEb) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44444973)
This was a fun website until I realized that restaurants in Harlem score overwhelmingly "not hot".
This sucks.
What's the purpose of this?
Aesthetics
Yep, makes the site look like it was rendered on an old browser on a CRT.
It simulates CRT pixelization and low resolution
took only a few checks for me to come to the conclusion that the setup has the age-old heavy bias towards beauty standards. I.e., if customers are black or Asian, hotness ranking goes down.
No, the setup doesn’t. It’s aggregating people’s behaviors and preferences. People appear to have a preference; whether it’s good or bad, natural or ingrained, or some combination thereof, is a matter for discussion.
Why is 2/3 of LA restaurant visited by "old" people per this map?
I assume it's a racial thing and the AI could not really detect the age correctly?
In NY the Irish pubs are tagged as old, which kinda makes sense.
Another bias can be who leaves reviews.
This sounds like the opening premise of a 90's romcom.
I love how quick people are to dismiss the obvious technical skill involved in making something like this, just because of the off-color premise.
Who's dismissing the obvious technical skill?
https://looksmapping.com/paper.pdf
This feels oddly old school shit posty made reality
Given that we're talking about NY, shouldn't it be Hot Dog (Stand) or Not?
that’s awful, I love it
It's missing large parts of LA.
..........not a hotdog.
When happens when a creator is stuck in a Twitter bubble
What kind of bubble do you think he is in?
What about the ethical concerns? Scrapping faces of people and feeding them into AI model without their permission.
It's all public pictures though. Why would I publish a picture of my face if I don't want people to have a picture of my face?
I can go into an art gallery but I may not touch the works. Often there aren't physical barriers but we all understand some behaviours are not acceptable.
Similarly, publication of an image on the internet is not implicit permission to use it for any possible purpose, however technically feasible. For example, deepfakes.
If you draw a mustache on a drawing in an art gallery, you ruin the original for everyone else. If you take the drawing home, no one else has the original any more.
If I download, copy, or edit images sent to my computer, the original is still there.
The artist puts their art on the gallery with the intent that people will enter that gallery and look at it without touching. The image uploaders uploads the image with the intent that a copy (not the original) gets sent to our computers when we look at Google Reviews.
You're misinterpreting the analogy.
- Drawing a mustache on the art = Vandalizing the original data (not what's happening).
- Taking the art home = Deleting the original data (also not what's happening).
- Scraping faces for an AI = Following visitors around the gallery, taking secret photos of them, and publishing a book that rates them by attractiveness.
The fact that the gallery is "public" does not make that behavior acceptable. The same is true here. "Publicly viewable" does not mean "publicly available for any use."
> Following visitors around the gallery, taking secret photos of them, and publishing a book that rates them by attractiveness.
Gallery visitors aren't publicly publishing gallery reviews with their pictures. This website doesn't go into restaurants and take pictures of the customers.
All the pictures here were attached to restaurant reviews by the person themselves with the expectation that the picture would be sent to others and be available to people not currently in the restaurant.
> taking secret photos of them,
The visitors took the photo, supplied the photo, and put it in a public place.
Similarly, publication of an image on the internet is not implicit permission to use it for any possible purpose, however technically feasible.
Are memes, or for that matter, satire and parody unethical?
Honestly the answer is “most people didn’t really expect that to be a thing when they did that” add those to all the people who “didn’t know that I was giving it to everyone. I thought this was between me and.. like.. yelp and people in my city”
It’s very confusing to technical people, but plenty of people were (still are) confused by the concept of the internet. What do you think all those people posting private information on each other’s facebook walls were doing? They are on their computer talking to their family member. How is anybody else getting in here?