Hot take: My route got changed by a new AI mapping tool and it was a disaster

The system tried to optimize for distance but ignored a huge hill and a school zone, adding 90 minutes to my day. Has anyone else seen AI make a 'smart' choice that was actually really dumb in practice?

4 comments

4 Comments

violar353mo ago

Yeah, that "smart" choice thing is everywhere now (like with my thermostat).

the_lee3mo ago

That's a 90 minute hill, wow. It's not just about distance, right? Like violar35 said, these systems miss the obvious stuff all the time.

jennifer8331mo ago

...and it's all part of this bigger push to just hand over every little decision to some algorithm that doesn't actually get context. Like my microwave has a "smart" setting that's supposed to pop popcorn perfectly, but it still burns half the bag and leaves the rest hard. Or the new grocery store app that keeps suggesting weird substitutes like oat milk for heavy cream because the system just see them as "milk alternatives." It's like we're all beta testers for stuff that wasn't ready, but they ship it anyway because it looks good in a demo.

jade_jenkins3mo ago

Wait, a NINETY minute hill? That's insane lol. The AI just saw a shorter line on a map and sent you straight up a mountain. It's like they forget real people have to drive on real roads with stuff like traffic and, you know, gravity. My old GPS tried to put me through a flooded underpass once because it was "faster." These systems have no common sense at all.