The extraordinary plant pictured here is called the 'Cat's Eye Sparkle.'
You can order a seed packet for $44 — even though it has never existed.
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One of the newest trends in online fraud is the sale of seeds for 'plants' whose images were generated by artificial intelligence.
Scammers selling seeds for this particular plant on eBay at $44 a packet reportedly earned more than $8,000 — and that's from a single plant.
This scam is creating a wave of confusion: customers have stopped trusting legitimate photographs of real plants, while at the same time walking into local nurseries and asking for seeds of plants that never existed in the first place.
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The line between real and fake has nearly disappeared, and even advanced AI-detection tools are now struggling to tell the difference.
Looking ahead, we will likely rely more and more on rigorous rating systems to tell us who is trustworthy and who isn't — yet the danger will always remain, particularly for older adults.
This is precisely why awareness matters more than anything else.
Educating users to exercise caution — perhaps under government sponsorship — is what will make the difference, and the sooner the better.