'Life Or Death:' AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books Are All Over Amazon

samleecole writes: A genre of AI-generated books on Amazon is scaring foragers and mycologists: cookbooks and identification guides for mushrooms aimed at beginners. Amazon has an AI-generated books problem that's been documented by journalists for months. Many of these books are obviously gibberish designed to make money. But experts say that AI-generated foraging books, specifically, could actually kill people if they eat the wrong mushroom because a guidebook written by an AI prompt said it was safe. The New York Mycological Society (NYMS) warned on social media that the proliferation of AI-generated foraging books could "mean life or death." A quick scan of Amazon's mushroom and foraging books revealed a bunch of books likely written by ChatGPT, but are sold without any indication that they're AI-generated and are marketed as having been written by a human when they're probably not. 404 Media used GPT text detectors and AI image detection tools on some of the suspicious books, and found that they were very likely made with AI, with authors who may not even exist.

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