If playing in the woods and picking wild mushrooms is on your bucket list, by all means, go for it. But when it comes to determining whether you can eat the mushrooms you foraged, don’t rely on artificial intelligence.
A Public Citizen’s new in-depth reportA nonprofit consumer advocacy group is warning novice mushroom enthusiasts against using artificial intelligence identification tools to determine whether their bounty is edible, noting that identifying mushrooms is a “high-risk activity that requires real-world skills.” Citing data from the following agencies, the report said that interest in and online searches for mushroom ID software and applications have increased in recent years, prompting Public Citizen to issue a warning. Google Trends.
While Public Citizen’s director of research Rick Claypool says AI-powered apps can be powerful tools for learning more about plants and animals, these queries can’t be compared to mushroom foraging – just take a photo of a mushroom and run it through an app Programs are not enough.
“Experienced local foragers know that there is no substitute for finding, observing, smelling, touching, and sometimes even tasting wild mushrooms where and when they occur,” Claypool wrote in the report. “Local knowledge is crucial as different species are found in different parts of the country.”
Claypool points out that a photo of a mushroom cap, for example, is rarely enough to determine the credibility of a species. It is crucial to consider the characteristics of the underside of the mushroom cap, the width of the cap, the characteristics of the stem and the base of the stem. Additionally, mushroom pickers must pay attention to where mushrooms grow, such as on the ground or wood. If it grows on wood, the collector must also identify the species of wood.
have More than 5,000 species of fleshy mushrooms In North America, there’s still a lot we don’t know about most of them, the report says. 75 of the mushroom species are known to be deadly or poisonous, while 36 are suspected to be poisonous. Additionally, 40 species are known to be poisonous when eaten raw, but are safe when cooked.
At least 133,000 cases of mushroom poisoning Reports from 1999 to 2016. 704 of the cases resulted in serious injuries and 52 resulted in death.
Claypool went on to say that there have been some studies on the accuracy of mushroom identification apps, but the results were not reassuring. A 2022 research from Australian toxicology researchers An analysis of three of the AI applications found that, on average, they only correctly identified wild mushrooms about 50 percent of the time. In some cases, these apps mistake poisonous mushrooms for edible mushrooms.
AI’s lack of expertise in mushroom identification isn’t limited to applications, though. In 2023, Amazon was inundated with AI-generated mushroom foraging books, many of which contained incorrect and potentially deadly information, Claypool said. Some mushroom-foraging books on Amazon purportedly show no sign that they were written by artificial intelligence. 404 media reported at the time.
“Amazon and other retail stores have been inundated with artificial intelligence foraging and identifying books,” the Mycological Society of New York said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). August 2023. “Please only buy books by well-known authors and foragers, it could mean life or death.”
The Public Citizen report noted that integrating artificial intelligence into search is also a concern.Last year, for example, Google gave users step-by-step instructions on how to cook Amanita, a deadly and poisonous mushroom. Generative AI has been known to create incorrect images of certain mushroom species, which can be confusing to mushroom novices, Claypool said.
Overall, Claypool said mushroom identification is just one of many examples of how overreliance on AI technology can lead to harm.
“Regardless of what companies marketing AI technologies may promise, the automation of personal expertise is not yet possible—and may actually never be achieved,” he wrote.