Many mushroom identification and foraging books being sold on Amazon are likely generated by AI with no human authorship. These books could provide dangerous misinformation and potentially lead to deaths if people eat poisonous mushrooms based on the AI’s inaccurate descriptions. Two New York mushroom societies have warned about the risks of AI-generated foraging guides. Experts note that safely identifying wild mushrooms requires careful research and experience that an AI system does not have. Amazon has since removed some books flagged as AI-generated, but more may exist. Detecting AI-generated books and authors can be difficult as the systems can fabricate author bios and images. Relying on multiple credible sources, as well as guidance from local foraging groups, is advised for safely pursuing mushroom foraging.
This is a disaster waiting to happen, especially when reputable mushroom books look like this
Oh dear.
Wait… is that a joke? AI mistake, guy with a trumpet for a hand, or weird photo angle? Now I’m confused 😯
That is truly a terrible idea, and Amazon should be liable since they do exercise control over what they sell (which I know, because I have two books for sale there).
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I’ve done the same with several listings for grills that have galvanized grates. Nothing ever happened. Amazon really doesn’t care.
ooh can I ask what books? I’m just curious 😅
But if I tell you, I doxx myself :)
Yikes, and I thought the AI generated children’s books were bad for society.
This is my experience so don’t rely on it: Most mushrooms won’t kill you but some will make you so sick that you wished you died. Even a small bite of the deadly Destroying Angle will most likely not kill you. Only eat a very small amount of a new-to-you mushroom because even safe ones may trigger a fatal allergic reaction, also “safe” Morel mushrooms have killed people who really, really over consumed them.
Get a real “National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms”, book and download the “Seek” app for your phone. Find a person who experienced and go slow. NEVER get careless or over confident.Then there’s the permanent kidney failure…
In the United States, where I used to travel often and widely, you have to pay for dialysis and it’s extremely expensive. In New York it cost me $1000 a session.
It’s worth pointing out that this is because the author is a foreign national. Americans with permanent kidney failure are guaranteed Medicare even if they’re under 65, and Medicare part B covers outpatient dialysis in full. Signing that into law is one of the few good things Richard Nixon ever did.
Thanks, interesting. I’m glad America gives everyone dialysis too. I live in a country with universal healthcare, so I sort of skimmed over the cost aspect because that wouldn’t be an issue here.
It is more the physical, quality-of-life-ruining aspects that give me the horror. I read an article once where a family of 4 all had severe permanent kidney damage from eating the wrong mushrooms.
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Until I started to see stories like that I thought about fungi in terms of death/not death, and didn’t realize the life-changing injury part in between.
Your poor friend. To be fair I can’t travel anyway for health reasons, but multiple organ failure still seems worse.
It’s also worth pointing out that $1,000 per session cost is probably the least bad thing about dialysis.
Most mushrooms won’t kill you
That’s not very reassuring
I don’t think it was meant to be reassuring. @rayyyy@kbin.social is right, don’t mess around with fungi. You can get irreversible kidney damage.
You can eat any mushroom… At least once.
Also, there are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters, but no old, bold mushroom hunters.
You can easily take a bullet to the brain… Once
As always, the dose makes the poison.
A common scenario is people picking the wrong species and then not just eating a small bite, but cooking an entire meal and eating that.A small bite may not kill you, but just one mushroom (50g) can be enough to do it.
There are some toxic mfs out there and they can be mistaken for edible lookalikes by inexperienced foragers.
Well, apart from that you can also make other mistakes like eating mushrooms undercooked or eating too old specimens leading to a food poisoning. Also, there are mushrooms that are quite edible for a long time but can cause organ failure and lead to death after many years.
Anyways, it seems like a really bad idea to let an AI decide what of all of this information is important and how to communicate it.
Amazon won’t care because nobody will hold Amazon accountable.
