Warning - Potentially Fake AI Wild Foraging Books

Heads-up, folks. I ran across an article indicating that there are a number of AI generated wild foraging books for sale on Amazon.

Experts are warning novice foragers to steer clear of potentially deadly books for sale on Amazon that appear to have been written by artificial intelligence chatbots, such as ChatGPT, 404 Media reports.

Forager Alexis Nikole Nelson is among the members of the foraging community sounding the alarm. “Please do your due diligence if you’re looking for a foraging book,” she said in a TikTok post. “Look for reputable authors like Sam (Samuel) Thayer or John Kallas or Ellen Zachos. And don’t believe everything that you see on the internet.”

... The New York Mycological Society also issued a warning on social media: “Please only buy books of known authors and foragers, it can literally mean life or death.”

The AI-generated foraging books are “totally irresponsible,” biology professor Myron Smith, a fungi specialist at Carleton University, told the Guardian. “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.”

https://nationalpost.com/life/food/why-you-shouldnt-trust-ai-to-identify-your-mushrooms

Books by Bleu Sayles and Hello Wild are AI. One I read by Bleu Sayles was not good at all. Potentially problematic info many places. Incorrect facts and stock agency photos. Real " I really know this" type of info is almost non existent. Space filler text everywhere.

Howdy,

The book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Ewell Gibbons, got me started at the young age(19) of foraging wild edibles. You could probably find a well used copy.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1416816

One of many reasons I love to keep real, live, physical books on hand. The internet is such a wealth of information… but it can be TOO much information. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Scary thought..... wow thanks for sharing and giving a heads up.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Heads-up, folks. I ran across an article indicating that there are a number of AI generated wild foraging books for sale on Amazon.

Experts are warning novice foragers to steer clear of potentially deadly books for sale on Amazon that appear to have been written by artificial intelligence chatbots, such as ChatGPT, 404 Media reports.

Forager Alexis Nikole Nelson is among the members of the foraging community sounding the alarm. “Please do your due diligence if you’re looking for a foraging book,” she said in a TikTok post. “Look for reputable authors like Sam (Samuel) Thayer or John Kallas or Ellen Zachos. And don’t believe everything that you see on the internet.”

... The New York Mycological Society also issued a warning on social media: “Please only buy books of known authors and foragers, it can literally mean life or death.”

The AI-generated foraging books are “totally irresponsible,” biology professor Myron Smith, a fungi specialist at Carleton University, told the Guardian. “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.”

https://nationalpost.com/life/food/why-you-shouldnt-trust-ai-to-identify-your-mushrooms

R West wrote:One of many reasons I love to keep real, live, physical books on hand. The internet is such a wealth of information… but it can be TOO much information. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

In our brave new world, I suppose that:

Data is not information, but only uncoalesced barf

Information is not knowledge, but only collated barf.

Knowledge requires filtering, discernment of signal vs. noise; various metrics and values applied to separate wheat from chaff.

And knowledge, I find, is not wisdom. Wisdom requires that knowledge be filtered and tested through experience and carefully-curated values.

My 2c.

David Spahr wrote:Books by Bleu Sayles and Hello Wild are AI. One I read by Bleu Sayles was not good at all. Potentially problematic info many places. Incorrect facts and stock agency photos. Real " I really know this" type of info is almost non existent. Space filler text everywhere.

I looked up these authors and was surprised to find them on Amazon, Thriftbooks, and Abe Books. I looked at the reviews on Amazon of three of Bleu Sayles' books. Only 1 1-star on 2 of them and 2 1-star on the other. Only three 1-star reviews (as opposed to 4 ratings, only) in total. One didn't like that the book fell apart. The other two reviews pointed out the flaws, and mentioned the books being written by AI. Most of the reviews were glowing reviews about how awesome the book was.

Makes me want to be extremely careful in the future. For example, if an author's name looks fake, it probably is.

The last wild foraging books I got are by a man (a real human) named Bradford Angier.

Ugh... Suppose the logical endpoint of the AI mania is that it will be irrational to fully believe anything at all that you didn't see for yourself, with your own two eyes, untouched by any computer. Which just makes it even more important that we share knowledge directly, person-to-person.

Of course, source criticism was always a vital skill when reading foraging books. I've read quite a lot of things in older books that are, hm, dubious. I remember one small book I saw, published in the early 40s sometime, that was more like a propaganda pamphlet advocating the eating of wild food to remedy the food shortages brought on by the war. It gave some fairly dangerous advice. The one specific thing I remember is that it suggested that eating bracken fern rhizomes with minimal processing was fine. It's most certainly not. It's likely to give you stomach cancer... So the problem is not exactly new. But well, AI is just going to make it soooo much worse. All manner of desinformation echoed a million times, and some random computer hallucinations on top of that. Yuck.

Anyways, thanks for letting us know.

I'm thinking the old adage of, 'believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see' needs a major overhaul.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Data is not information, but only uncoalesced barf

Information is not knowledge, but only collated barf.

Knowledge requires filtering, discernment of signal vs. noise; various metrics and values applied to separate wheat from chaff.

And knowledge, I find, is not wisdom. Wisdom requires that knowledge be filtered and tested through experience and carefully-curated values.

My 2c.

AI needs to stick to making video game algorithms.

some writers are taking action:

“It’s potentially the biggest rip-off in creative history,” says Douglas Preston, a best-selling author and one of the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed after the initial outrage.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a61485201/books-ai-lawsuits/

I found this video made by an experienced forager who decided to take a look at a couple of them.

His results are somewhat disturbing...

Years ago I had a young local expert teach me mushroom hunting.  I stopped the lesson after 30 minutes.  It was clear he had no idea what he was doing.   Oh yes, he died many years ago.