New Delhi, March 24 -- Can you imagine Idli-soft, simple, and the most unassuming star of the breakfast plate-as a nervous wreck? He is miserable. Sambar, once his perfect companion, is leaving him to marry Vada-crisp, golden, and impossible to ignore, with far more swagger. Left on the edge of the plate, Idli can't help but wonder: when did simple stop being enough?

Social media platforms are flooded with such melodramas, as artificial intelligence (AI) content creators increasingly turn everyday food items into original fictional characters, giving them human-like personalities, emotions, and relationships, and weaving dramatic, over-the-top storylines around them.

Such AI content has emerged as a clever workaround to sidestep copyrig...