Picture this: You're out foraging in the woods, you snap a pic of an innocent-looking mushroom, and your trusted Google Gemini AI app tells you it's a button mushroom. You gather a batch, take them home and fry them up with a little butter and garlic. Your family thanks you for the delicious meal, and you in turn, thank Google for identifying the mushrooms.
Plot twist! Gemini was wrong and you all just ate Destroying Angel mushrooms.
Is that a bad thing?
Yeomanrand describes the effects of eating a Destroying Angel:
The Amanita mushrooms, destroying angel included, are a horrible way to die. Particularly because, like rabies, when you first show symptoms you're already dead.
But that's not what makes Amanita Ocreata and its relatives awful.
With rabies there is no reprieve: you are sick and get sicker until you die. With these mushrooms, though, you will be sick for a while, and then suddenly you will feel like it has passed, and you are on the mend.
This is a lie. You are about to return to groaning intestinal pain, slip into a coma, and die. Because during that "reprieve" period, as Kingfisher & Wombat note, the active toxin in the mushroom is destroying your liver.
Only forage with a reliable guide, never an app, and if you're not sure don't pick and eat it!
Google wants to put AI in every part of our lives, but it can't even tell the difference between a tasty side dish and certain death. It's like trusting your drunk uncle to perform brain surgery because he once watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy.
Previously: This tropical mushroom gives women spontaneous orgasms from sniffing it
