In the middle of mushroom picking season, mycologists recommend not relying on Google image banks. Some can be generated by AI and mislead enthusiasts.
The image has made react the experts on the social network Reddit. A screenshot published on September 19, 2024 by a member of the “mycology” group indicates that an image of a mushroom generated by artificial intelligence appears at the top of the results during a Google search.
The user indicates that the photo comes from an image bank and would even be titled “Coprinus comatus on transparent background | Premium PSD generated by AI”. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Google’s algorithm scrape stock image content, nor the first time it’s gotten it completely wrong. I’ve flagged dozens of images over the last year, just by casually browsing “, warns the enthusiast.
The AI-generated image is no longer at the forefront on Google. However, it exposes dangerous approximations highlighted by the search engine. Getting mushrooms wrong is not trivial, with a large portion of the population turning to the web to get quick answers. These montages risk misleading.
Don’t do your mushroom picking from Google Images
« Image banks are full of errors of this type. I regularly come across erroneous identifications by photographers who provide these platforms with photos of mushrooms.Guillaume Eyssartier, a mycologist attached to the laboratory of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and author of several works, tells us.
« In this specific case, the Internet user will search for images of coprinus comatus (Shaggy coprinus, considered edible if eaten young) and comes across an image that borrows the features of coprinus micaceus (micacé coprin),” says the expert. “ However, identifying mushrooms requires precision on many criteria, and relying on random images can be dangerous for someone who would seek to consume them. “, adds Guillaume Eyssartier.
AI is not yet good enough to recognize mushrooms
An artificial intelligence collects data that it uses as a basis to generate a result. As for the images, it relies on a large number of photos to generate a creation, which is the product of the analysis of these various shots. It will therefore not reproduce an identical porcini mushroom, but take all the images with which it was fed.
« Among similar species, some can be poisonous, while others are edible. You can’t rely on Google Search or Google Lens in these cases. An AI-generated image won’t tell the difference between a deadly death cap mushroom and an edible meadowsweet.e”, explains Nicolas Schwab, a mycologist in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
Rather than typing the name of the mushroom into Google, the expert recommends:
- not to pick if in doubt,
- to question experts, on the site iNaturalistFor example,
- to post pictures on a Facebook group.
Sharing the image on social media may take a little longer, but it will allow for multiple external opinions, rather than relying on artificial intelligence.
Source: www.numerama.com
