His team also encountered a man wandering around at a trailhead with an AI-generated map that showed prominent features on the wrong side of a nearby mountain.

[jonny@neuromatch.social]

an AI generated MAP!?!?!?!? we have had fucking CARTOGRAPHY for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. we have fucking SATELLITES. we even have fucking crowdsourced trail maps. how in the ever loving fuck are we HERE in HISTORY where people are using AI GENERATED MAPS

[carstenfranke@mastodon.social]

@jonny in a few years there will be plenty of good jobs for people who did not fry their brains with this shit ...

[amy@sk.girlthi.ng]

@jonny@neuromatch.social this barely even measures on my surprised meter now and i don’t know what that says about me or this industry lol

[fennix@infosec.space]

@jonny

Worship is a powerful drug.

[bazkie@beige.party]

@jonny 🥹

[gaditb@icosahedron.website]

@jonny Because that's the properties of the tool they were promised.

If you, I dunno, go up to a friend or hire a secretary or go to a travel agent -- all the prior metaphors the companies selling these are instructing people to use -- and ask them to help you plan a trip, they're gonna either say "yeah here's a map that I got from somewhere I trust enough to use myself" or else say "nah" and you won't have anything.

The idea that "I'll draw you a professional looking map, it'll just be wrong" is completely, well, off the (metaphorical now) map of anything the companies providing these are giving to their users.

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@jonny

so hard not to be mean-spirited about this.

[lazarou@mastodon.social]

@jonny should we be rescuing these people? /s

[allanb@mastodon.social]

@jonny It's also a delicious spread on toast!

[griotspeak@soc.mod-12.com]

@jonny I have been made to think about this by living in through The Years 2020 and I have a weird theory that people believe that the computer generating it will be more “efficient”. Efficiency is a hand wavy metric here that has more to do with feelings BUT it is also about “AI can quickly make a map and I don’t have to bother looking for a good one”

[theorangetheme@en.osm.town]

@carstenfranke @jonny Tbh I'm not sure Enlightenment-flavored modern society can continue to exist if a significant plurality of people are, frankly, dumb as rocks.

[sgsax@mastodon.social]

@jonny Hear me out: this is a self-solving problem.

[carstenfranke@mastodon.social]

@theorangetheme
Agreed... Back in 1996 I and 3 other chemist friends developed a sociological thesis: A) 90% of the population is incredibly stupid and B) there is no lower limit for stupidity.
Ok, not totally serious, that all was based on observations in a vacation resort in Spain... But it seems we are making an effort to get there. And this "AI" craze is accelerating it. It is depressing.

@jonny

[bamfingle@cyberplace.social]

@jonny These stories have become more and more frequent. Yikes on trikes.

[katja@toots.matapacos.dog]

@jonny but AI has electrolytes... It's what shareholders crave! /j

[jsbarretto@social.coop]

@jonny The map is the territ- oh wait, fuck

[lrhodes@merveilles.town]

@jonny AI maps: putting humans into literal loops.

[wronglang@bayes.club]

@jonny oh no, people get lost and die even with correct maps

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@jonny

happens way more often than it ever should

https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/117215795130883496

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@futurebird @jonny

when they put their toddler on a bison for a photograph, then you can get really mean-spirited