Applications and services for identifying mushrooms have appeared recently. The user gives a photo as input and it will tell the mushroom's name, along with information on whether it is edible or not. Such programs claim to be driven by "artificial intelligemce."
Experts warn that these tools may make mistakes which can potentially sicken or even kill a user. The error can happen at two levels. First, given an input image, the program might wrongly identify the species. Second, an error in the database may tell users that a certain kind of mushroom is edible, when in fact it is not. The latter issue is complicated for several factors influence toxidity: region, season and method of cooking. Some mushrooms are known to cause problems when consumed with alcohol. We can tell people about the hazards of non-free software using these "artificial intelligence" systems as examples. One may want to modify the program to correctly warn the user that the mushroom in the photo looks toxic, or examine the code to determine why it makes mistakes, but non-free software does not allow that. Another issue I would like to raise is that many people erroneously believe that "artificial intelligence" is an improved form of software. Conventional programs are accurate when properly written, but "AI" systems work on a different principle which cannot guarantee accuracy. Many people fail to understand this. They think: "Computers are accurate. AI makes computers better so one with AI must also be accurate." We are discussing single-purpose systems here, but sooner or later we will have general-purpose image identification systems which claim to be capable of properly identifying most things around us, including wild mushrooms, herbs, snakes, jellyfish and all else. Relying on AI to Identify Mushrooms Could Kill You https://gizmodo.com/ai-mushroom-id-dangerous-consumer-advocates-warn-1851355484 Mushrooming Risk: Unreliable A.I. Tools Generate Mushroom Misinformation - Public Citizen (long article) https://www.citizen.org/article/mushroom-risk-ai-app-misinformation/ _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
