An international group of qualified mushroom identifiers who do worldwide identification in emergency cases have identified the Shroomers App as a potentially very dangerous system that could kill you if you try to use it to identify edible mushrooms. They use AI to generate almost all of their content, including their identification profiles on their app as well as their books and other materials. Not only is this unethical from a content creation standpoint, it is also extremely dangerous.
DO NOT USE APPS FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES BEYOND SIMPLE CURIOSITY. A MISTAKE WHEN IDENTIFYING AN EDIBLE COULD COST YOU YOUR LIFE. DO NOT EAT ANY FORAGED MUSHROOM YOU CANNOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF BY SIGHT OR HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED IN PERSON BY SOMEONE WHO CAN.
ONLY BUY BOOKS FROM REPUTABLE SOURCES AND AT THIS POINT THAT MEANS ASKING EXPERIENCED PEOPLE WHAT BOOKS THEY USE.
Mushrooms are fun, amazing organisms. Enjoy safely.
…Not a phrase I imagined myself typing today. But, via @heyMAKWA on Twitter:
“i'm not going to link any of them here, for a variety of reasons, but please be aware of what is probably the deadliest AI scam i've ever heard of:
“plant and fungi foraging guide books. the authors are invented, their credentials are invented, and their species IDs will kill you.”
…So PLEASE be careful if you run across anything of this kind.
(ETA: Corrected egregious typo in the title. Apologies, as I was [a] in bed [b] typing hurriedly and one-handed on the iPad, and [c] I think its native keyboard may need recalibration, but also [d] I was upset about what I was having to post, because seriously, WTF?!!)
Happy Tuesday, and a happy Day of the Mushroom to all who celebrate those delicious, brainy lifeforms. Whether you love them or loathe them, please feast your eyes on these delightful depictions of all manner of fungi—many but not all of which were created during @feefal's #funguary art challenge.
Funguary is right around the corner, and I couldn’t be more excited to dive in again! I’ve always had a soft spot for fungi, so I’m eagerly anticipating this year’s creative journey. Who else is jumping on board? Here’s a throwback to some of the mushroom characters I designed last year. 🍄✨
I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.