A Galaxy of Human Oddities: Doubao Says It's Edible, Kid Says You'll Ascend to Heaven
A young couple from Ya’an, Sichuan, went to Kangding’s Jiagenba to experience mushroom picking. They followed a local up the mountain at dawn, gathered over ten pounds, and filled two bags—a triumphant haul, ready to head down and have a restaurant cook it up.
To be safe, the boyfriend pulled out his phone and used AI to identify each mushroom one by one, tossing out the ones deemed toxic and keeping only those the AI certified as “edible.” Everything seemed perfect: tech-powered, safety guaranteed.
Then, on their way down the mountain, they ran into a local kid carrying a small bamboo basket.
What Kind of Baffling Move Is This?
The kid took the initiative to check out their “spoils.” After a look, he started tossing them out, one by one.
“These are mostly poisonous.”
Toss.
“This one’s no good either.”
Toss.
The couple panicked. Pointing at a mushroom the AI had just identified as an “edible red mushroom,” they said: “Doubao says this one’s edible!”
The kid casually tossed it too, dropping a line:
“Edible? Eat it, and you’ll ascend to heaven by nightfall.”
After the kid’s ruthless screening, their over-ten-pound haul was reduced to just about two pounds.
Why Is It Funny?
The humor in this story lies in an epic showdown between high-tech and raw, local experience—and high-tech gets crushed instantly.
On one side: a phone + AI multimodal recognition + one-by-one photo filtering—a sophisticated, modern safety protocol.
On the other: a kid with a bamboo basket, takes one look, and tosses.
It’s not that the kid is some kind of prodigy; it’s that he knows these mushrooms on this mountain down to muscle memory. Which thorny bush grows what, which color is a no-go, a sniff tells him if it’s fit for the pot—this is experience honed from walking with adults since he could walk, year after year, filtered by both taste and survival.
You’re using the most advanced AI to find the optimal solution; he’s using generations of survival experience to deliver a crushing blow.
What Category Does It Fall Into?
The humor in this baffling move fits into these categories:
- The Absurdity of Over-Seriousness — The boyfriend was genuinely serious, taking photos one by one, letting the AI filter them, a meticulous process. But this “seriousness” is instantly nullified by the kid, creating a stark contrast.
- Pure Mental Leaps — The kid’s actions come with zero explanation—just toss after toss, paired with that line about “ascending to heaven,” creating a strong rhythm.
- Battling High-Tech — It’s not a fight against an inanimate object, but against the authority of AI. Doubao stamps “edible,” the kid says “ascend to heaven”—who do you trust?
Why Do We Need to Record This?
The value of jokes like this is that they remind us: some things, AI really can’t replace.
AI image recognition has come a long way in recent years—identifying cats and dogs, famous mountains and rivers, it’s mostly reliable. But wild fungi are a whole different beast. Many poisonous mushrooms look incredibly similar to edible ones. Relying on just one photo from one angle, even professional mycologists wouldn’t dare guarantee it, let alone an AI model with scarce training data on fungi.
Local mountain folks have a different system: it doesn’t rely on taxonomy. It’s based on “I’ve only eaten these few types since I was a kid; anything else, whether poisonous or not, if I don’t know it, I treat it as poisonous.” This simple principle seems crude, but its safety margin is surprisingly high—because it defaults to respecting what it doesn’t know.
So the best part of this story isn’t that “AI is dumb,” but the clash of two systems: one is eager to give you an answer (“This is edible!”), and the other refuses to endorse anything uncertain (“Toss it.”).
When it comes to what goes into your mouth, that “toss” is the real intelligence.
Keeping a sense of humor is the best armor against the erosion of the absurd—but occasionally, you might need a local kid to toss a few mushrooms for you.