GULLIBLE eBay shoppers are becoming victims of a bizarre scam that sees them buy non-existent AI-generated flowers that resemble cats.
Cat’s eye dazzle seeds from China are advertised on the site and fake AI made photos of the plant pretend they bloom into feline shaped flowers.
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Although no such plant exist the seeds are said to be “rare”, “organic” and “non-GMO” and come with a steep price tag of more than £35 a pop.
Fact-checking website Snopes has found the false imagery circulating all over social media sites, including Facebook, Reddit and X.
A suspicious web user contacted the site to alert them about the seeds and it confirmed the flowers were “fake” and said no such plant exists.
It scanned the images with AI-detection tools on aiornot.com and isitai.com to reveal they were created by AI, while Adobe Photoshop “may also have been used to tweak the pictures”.
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And no record of any flower with the name cat’s eye dazzle existed before this year Google data shows, reports the Daily Mail.
According to Snopes, the photos were posted by a Facebook user to a group called National Geographic Wild Planet.
The group has more than 1.4million members, but despite its name, it is not affiliated with National Geographic, the US nature channel.
The user’s post raked in more than 80,000 likes and tens of thousands of shares on the site – and many expressed interest in purchasing the plant.
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One wrote: “love to have these seeds”, while another agreed saying: “I WANT SOME SEED”.
Alarmingly Snopes discovered “hundreds” of the seeds had been sold on eBay with prices even sometimes surpassing £35.
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The umber of people conned is unknown as well as what exactly they received in the post after completing their purchase.
According to Snopes, those who appeared to believe the flowers were real tended to be pensioners.
As well as eBay, the flowers were reportedly advertised for sale on imseeds.com, gardenerstar.com, foundseed.com and dailyrosy.com – and domain registration information for these websites “point to China”.
Misleading information suggesting the plant really exists was also circulating on Reddit, although some users recognised it as a scam.
Warnings about AI
ALTHOUGH there are many great scientific and technological advances that can be made with AI some have voiced concerns.
Here are four dangers of AI according to Built in.
1. LACK OF EXPLAINABILITY– Due to the complex nature of AI it can be difficult for even its creators to find out how it comes to a conclusion on something. There is a lack of explanation for what data AI algorithms use, or why they may make biased or unsafe decisions
2. JOB LOSSES – There is rising concern that AI will be able to do jobs better than humans and could replace some jobs. AI is already is adopted in industries like marketing, manufacturing and healthcare.
3. AI TAKEOVER – There is some concern that AI will advance so far that it will become sentient, and act beyond humans’ control — possibly in a malicious manner.
4. LOSS OF HUMAN INFLUENCE – If humans become too comfortable with AI technology it could result in the loss of human influence — and a lack in human functioning — in some parts of society. For example, using AI in healthcare could result in reduced human empathy and reasoning.
One Reddit user said: “This AI garbage is all over social media (especially Facebook) and thousands of people eat it up thinking it’s real.
“I don’t know why it makes me angry, but it does.”
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“There are a ton of dishonest sellers selling generic wildflower seeds as fake plant seeds using AI-generated images and Photoshop.
“These are about as real as blue strawberries or rainbow orange seeds,” added another.
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