My dad uses Google Maps, and he mentioned that it seems to be getting worse. Like, giving him directions that are obviously worse than alternatives. Has anyone else here experienced this?
It coincides with their switch to more and more “AI” black box models. Whereas before they would use a hand-tuned heuristic model to describe whether you are turning, merging, or continuing on a road, they just use a less correct but automagic model where they still inevitably have to tune it a whole lot but it is “AI” so it has the approval of the petty lords of management.
Incorrect entrances and closed roads are another example. They’re just using satellite and street level imagery and tossing it at some models that spit out things like “door 99% confidence” and “road 98% confidence” while neglecting the question of, “are you actually allowed/able to use this?”
PS under basically every correct answer in this category is a team of poorly-paid “labelers” whose answers directly turn into the data in the map. Your door-that-is-not-an-entrance was marked entrance because someone making $8/hr only had 10 seconds to review before moving to the next question.
Google Maps is headed by Ray Kurzweil, who refuses to see any downsides to AI.
AI being a great thing is a postulate for this guy.
lmao the futurology grifter
I thought he was head of AI not maps tho
Semi recently had mine try to take me through a private business parking lot which was entirely fenced off, and didn’t even connect on the other side. That was… confusing, to say the least.
They switched from giving you the fastest route by default to giving you the one that uses the least gas.
They also now offer alternative routes that take you past businesses which paid money to Google.Elites loves to treat working class time as a zero-value resource. It’s just assumed that everyone is willing to give up hours a week if it means using fewer plastic bags, or less gas, or taking a bus instead of a car, or charging their car during off peak hours, or whatever.
Time is treated as negligible in value.
That’s in your trip options “prefer fuel efficient route”. You can turn it off.
I know. But I won’t.
Hypermiling is as fun to me as driving fast is for others.
It’s like a mini-game I get to play every time I’m forced to drive a car.I hypermile casually but I’m not sacrificing travel time to save a bit of gas.
Ahh, I misinterpreted your post as a complaint. I’m not a hypermiler, but I do find the efficient routes are often the lowest stress routes as well.
I hypermile casually but I’m not sacrificing travel time to save a bit of gas.
Apparently everyone ITT has had 100 times more trouble with Google maps than I ever have had. Seriously entire categories of problems I’ve never experienced. Google maps has never tried to make me drive through a yard or field for example. Been using it since before it was a smartphone app.
Google maps has never tried to make me drive through a yard or field for example.
Did someone complain about that? I’m seeing tons of complains and none of them are this
Yeah ITT I saw someone say it tried to take them through a field and a barn, and someone else said someone’s yard. I thought it was weird.
It’s been discussed in other comments that because Google is A/B testing their old maps model against a new AI model that only some people are experiencing it. It’s probably only being tested in some areas.
Yeah, twice this month. It’s taken me through a dirt road (where we got stuck in the mud) and a closed road. Its also told me to turn at places where I cannot or where I must not. I’ve also checked that the car directions are selected and not “bike” or something else.
A few weeks ago I talked with a big truck driver and he said that Google maps sent him through a mud track. At the end the truck got stuck between two village houses. He lost one our to get out with the help of several neighbors. Its time to change to “Organic maps” or Osmand.
I tried organic maps once and it told me to do a u turn as the last instruction in the route, when I actually needed to turn right into my destination. I rarely drive these days but I’ll definitely try it again to see how well it does.
If you see this type of issues you can open a note in OpenStreetMap (register not required). One of the OpenStreetmap volunteers will fix the issue. Take a look at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes
Thanks, good to know!
Makes sense. Google has been replacing skilled engineers with tail-eating AI regurgitation engines, which are getting progressively worse as they eat their own shit.
But I’ve been told those regurgitation engines are about to get really smart and replace all skilled labor.
So maybe it’ll be fine.
Or maybe, as we’ve already started to see, more and more useful stuff will only be available via the Internet wayback machine, until they kill it.
When AI gets applied to robot bodies, real world results will be able to trim out bad knowledge. Currently because AI only feeds on internet content, all the AI has to eat is human content and AI content.
AI will drift away from accuracy until it gets embodied at which point it will start to get more accurate.
Real world experience can help, but what we have now is also too stupid to recognize when it’s succeeding or failing. It just greedily gobbles up inputs and feedback indiscriminately.
There’s currently no way to know if the necessary advancement, to advance independently of humans, is 2 years or 2000 years away.
Even so, nature tells us that advancement probably isn’t coming at all. It’s not needed, so long as there are billions of humans available to partner with.
Just have a nuclear reactor to run the LLM on the robot and you’re all set
Mine is fine, but somehow my wife’s gives her the worst possible routes that are counter intuitive. We checked all settings about avoiding / not avoiding tolls, ferries, etc. She just some gets crap directions.
I’ve had mine tell me to drive along a rail line
Does it give her bad directions on one device or everywhere she is signed into Google?
She only uses a phone for everything, so checking on a computer login is not easy to do.
Wow, that’s strange. Have you tried comparing the routes it gives you to the same places, side by side?
Yes, it will reroute her to the worst possible wat to get somewhere, while mine will be direct. At first I thought she had bus or walking enabled, but it is set on car, and we have same route settings. I don’t understand it, unless the google algorithm looks at your driving history or something like her phone GPS satellites used are different and somehow location info is different–even though the car tracks on the street possible.
That must have something to do with like A/B testing or something. Like she’s in the guinea pig cohort where she gets the “experimental” routes.
Maybe the answer, to see if routes are valid. They picked the wrong test subject though, she gets so frustrated she sometimes gives up on the trip. lol
I haven’t had any issues with Google maps recently, occasionally it’ll try to take me on a more “fuel efficient” route. Recently my wife used apple maps and it took us to the wrong location, it kept trying to take us to Washington township when the address we entered was in Washington heights.
I’m always concerned about google maps because the alternatives suck, but google is making their services awful, one by one. I’m waiting for the day that google maps becomes terrible too. I do have openstreetmaps (using organic maps on android) and I fixed a few things about my local area there but it doesn’t have some of the features I’d like and it doesn’t seem like they have plans to add them.
Just as an example, business reviews. I can use yelp but it is nice that it’s right there. Also, the user submitted things like speed traps, accidents, etc.
Fascinating, I’ve found better results with Apple Maps lately than Google Maps. Which blew my mind, because Apple Maps was a complete joke when it launched.
In our experience Google maps updates traffic conditions faster than apple maps. But Google maps tends to pick more routes that I wouldn’t consider the most efficient, ex: getting off the highway sooner and taking back roads vs going up another exit closer to the destination. But like I said we have had a few times where apple maps has gotten confused with places with similar names.
All this talk about organic maps here on Lemmy does not feel organic at all.
Is there an ad campaign or something?
I mean it’s always a good assumption nowadays with chat gpt
What sense would it make to spend money on an ad campaign for Organic Maps? It’s completely free and the makers of the app literally get nothing out of you using it.
I don’t know. It’s just that it feels really unorganic how often it comes up on Lemmy.
Especially with fake sounding “organic” threads that I know from proven social media marketing.
I could very well be wrong of course but if I had the time I would investigate this further.
Google is doing a lot of A and B testing right now. Some days I habe to use Bing or duckduckgo, no matter what, or else I get shit results.
Absolutely. Not only does it show ads now, it’s so busy that it’s distracting and hard to keep track of your route.
I’d say yes. Earlier this week, it navigated me, and I assume a metric ton of people through road construction. Took me over an hour to get to My destination. There’s no chance that was actually the fastest route. 0 chance road construction and stalled cars was faster than literally anything else
I’ve been getting weird walking instructions. Like 6 min walk is +30 to avoid some invisible barrier.
Those invisible intangible barriers can be tricky like that.
I live in a city with great public transport and for years Google maps was great for bus/tube times and walking routes. Now after 6 years of no probs Google maps has forgotten the bus stop right under my window and thinks I should walk up or down the road to the next stop. It has forgotten the crossings what are still there, no road works or anything, and thinks I should take 15 min detour instead of just crossing the street right then and there. It’s clearly going downhill here.
Time to switch Gmaps to Organic Maps or Osmand. Both free and with offline navigation.
Oh cool I’ve never heard but installed them from fdroid just now
Yes. It’s hard to make out the map with all the pinned ads sometimes, and I’ve had multiple times this year where it has taken me to the wrong place. Every time that happens, I boot up Organic Maps and get right to my destination.
Lolwut? Didn’t realise they were serving ads on maps too, that’s hectic
You know how you can see pinned restaurants with their name and a fork and knife icon? Businesses can pay to show their full logo and get priority in search results/what shows first on the map as you zoom in.
Google/Waze will volunteer users to take alternative routes to scout out ways around congestion. It can be a better route, but you are the guinea pig, so you can get the short end of the stick.
There also is learned driving habits that may inform routing choices.
That’s pretty interesting about the scout cars.Is there any sort of indication thats what they’re doing? I will say given Google’s track record I wouldn’t put it past them to intentionally route traffic near where their paid advertiser’s money comes from.
No indication except for knowing the area and being sent a strange way that doesn’t make sense to you.
The routing is ambivalent to advertising money. The driving data they sell informs where advertisers put money. Horse, then cart; not cart, then horse.
So far… I can easily see some MBA wanting to add that “feature”. They have your driving history, they could easily route someone with Starbucks stops past more Starbucks for a fee.
