Amazon Sees Influx of Life Threatening AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books (1)
Amazon's got a wild AI problem: fake mushroom guidebooks. While AI-generated books on the platform aren't new, experts are raising the alarm about these potentially deadly foraging guides.
Hats off to the investigative journalism team at 404 Media (the new spinoff from some of the ex-Vice stars). Read the original article and support the team if you’re so moved, it’s exceptional work.
The New York Mycological Society (NYMS) is sounding the siren, warning that these AI-authored books, especially given they are targeting beginner foragers, could lead to death. Why? Because some toxic mushrooms can look a lot like the safe ones. "Authors" like "Edwin J. Smith" and "Mageret Lawrence" seem to be AI creations, with their books being over 85% AI-written.
We recently discovered this article by Jane Friedman, an author who discovered that books that she had nothing to do with were being uploaded to Amazon, crediting her as the author, and stealing the revenue. This is clearly a new and rapidly expanding problem, evolving into one that can actually kill people. We’re not sure how to solve for it just yet, but this is one to keep on the radar.
And while AI might be good at many things, distinguishing between a tasty mushroom and a deadly one isn't one of them. So, foragers, stick to human-written guides and maybe don't trust a book written by a bot.
