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Comment by mgerdts | Hacker News Reader

I tried it out around the yard and it correctly identified a variety of native flowering plants (in and past their prime), a couple trees (one native to the region, one about 400 miles from its native range), and a few ferns. The only one I'm pretty certain it got wrong was misidentifying a ghost fern as a Japanese painted fern (I have both, they are rather easily distinguished). When I tried to suggest that the misidentified fern was a ghost fern, it was unknown to the app so I couldn't suggest it.

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Did you try to suggest by the common name or the Latin name? It's highly unlikely that the app would have all the common names of all the plants. Even the common name "ghost fern" refers to a few different plants. Most commonly in the ornamental plant trade it refers to a hybrid variety called Athyrium x hybrida 'Ghost'

The other major issue with ornamental plants is that they're often selected for very particular physiological characteristics. This often leads to plants that visually look very different from their wild ancestor but are still extremely closely genetically related. If you've ever had a variety of a plant with variegated leaves for example, you'll probably trip apps like these up a lot. It's simply too difficult to keep up with all the new ornamentals being bred every year. The data just doesn't exist and they're quite often weird hybrids with uncertain phylogenetics anyways

Interesting...seems like a generalized issue with identification type AI?

Eh I wouldn't say that. You can selective breed certain plants to look extremely similar to other plants over the course of even a single year. As in, you would be able to trick a human being as well. If AI is making the same mistakes as a human, I don't really think it's a problem with the model as much as a limitation of the data

I mean taxonomists themselves have often been proven incredibly wrong once phylogenetic studies have been conducted. There's simply major limitations to identifying a species by it's physical characteristics alone. Not to mention you don't get to, for example, smell, touch, taste, or watch something over time. Really it's incredible how accurate they even are already

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