The Rainbow That Will Never Grow

Or: How an AI Invented a Plant and Someone Started Selling the Seeds AI images created for a scam Facebook advertisement selling seeds for Hosta plants There is a plant for sale on Facebook that does not exist. It is called the Rainbow Hosta. Also the Fiery Crimson Hosta. Also the Midnight Blue Hosta. Also the Pink-Green Hosta, the Champagne Fog Hosta, and the Blue Porcelain Hosta. The images are genuinely beautiful. Leaves in electric pinks, deep crimsons, iridescent rainbows, and luminous sapphire blues that seem almost too vivid to be real. They are too vivid to be real. They were generated by an AI asked to imagine "rare hosta", and it complied enthusiastically without any particular knowledge of what a hosta actually is or what colours one is capable of producing. The seeds are €11.99 for 200, marked down from €22.99. You are saving 49%. The page informs you that 272 have already been sold, 1,000 people are currently browsing, and 263 people have personally recommended this…