Shroom Scandal On Amazon: AI-Written Guides Lead Foragers Astray

By Lucía Tedesco via El Planteo

Experts are sounding the alarm about the potential danger of AI-written books on mushrooms that have become widely available through Amazon AMZN.

Amateur mushroom foragers are being warned that some of the books they're consulting may have been written by AI chatbots and could contain inaccurate and dangerous information.

In addition to offering AI-written travel guides, Amazon is adding fungi-related categories. These books include paragraphs that seem to be written by humans, with sensory descriptions and tips for mushroom collection. But, they are, in fact, created by machine intelligence.

The books are littered with factual and grammatical errors, and their “authors” are mysterious. None are available to comment, most don’t seem to exist at all.

Ironically, whoever discovered that these books were written with the help of Artificial Intelligence, was found on an AI forum.

The AI That Spotted Fake Books On Amazon

Originality.ai, an American company that detects AI-generated content, evaluated four samples of dubious books and confirmed that each one of them delivered a 100% rating on its AI detection test, The Guardian reported.

Two of the four books in question were: "Wild Mushroom Cookbook: A Beginner’s Guide to Learning the Basics of Cooking with Wild Mushrooms for Health and Flavor, Complete with Easy-to-follow Recipes!" and "Wild Mushroom Cookbook: Unlock the Delicious Secrets of Nature’s Most Flavorful fungi."

Experts Warn of Danger.

Knowledgeable people in mycology and foraging have strongly criticized these books for providing misinformation and dangerous advice, such as identifying fungi by smell and taste. Leon Frey, a food search guide and field mycologist at Family Foraging Kitchen, notes the Guardian, adding that they seem to be encouraging tasting as a method of identification and that this “should absolutely not be the case."

Myron Smith, a mushroom specialist at Carleton University in Canada, said the books are totally irresponsible. "Some of the differences between edibles and non-edibles are very subtle, and it really takes an experienced eye and knowledge to discriminate between them."

Under these circumstances, those interested in mushroom collection are advised to choose books from reliable and known sources rather than trusting potentially misleading AI books.

Amazon is reviewing the books and has removed some from the platform. “All publishers…must adhere to our content guidelines, regardless of how content was created,” Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told The Hustle.

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