You’ve likely heard me rant and rave in previous My Two Cents about how the development of artificial intelligence and autonomous machines will spell the end of human existence on this planet. I warn all the time that Terminator 2 was meant to be a warning—not a how-to guide. And yet, despite warnings by even the majority of the people who work with and who are building AI about the threat it poses to our species, development continues.
However, on my recent honeymoon travels I had several experiences that are giving me some renewed hope. You see, when the killer robots, vehicles, and weapons systems come for us, if they need to use GPS to get around, we will have a fighting chance.
I’m not saying that somehow we will be able to shut down the satellites and the cellular systems that power our navigational systems. We will have made the fatal mistake of turning those over to AI computers long before the termination orders are activated. Besides, we will be better off to leave them running and providing their information to the cyborgs and drones, because they will likely be given directions that will leave them unable to even get out of their production facilities and bases.
Traveling in unfamiliar territory for better than a week, I made the incredibly foolish decision to use navigation systems to get around. And the level of incompetence these apps operated at was astounding.
On our first day, our goal was to drive from Green Bay to Cleveland—where we were going to spend the night. Upon setting our destination, the app said it would take us nine hours to get there. I thought that odd, because I’ve driven to that area before, and it certainly did not take that long. I thought perhaps that it was using “real-time traffic information” to tabulate the drive time—but since we would be missing heavy traffic times in some major cities along the route, that would come down. It was also possible, that the GPS was adding the hour we would “lose” by entering the Eastern Time Zone.
Things went well on the journey until the system directed me to get onto the Tri-State Tollway north of Chicago. Not 15-minutes later, it wanted me to exit onto a surface road heading into one of the suburbs. Knowing that I wanted to take the Tollway all the way to Indiana, I ignored that direction and drove past the exit. As soon as I did, I got the “recalculating route” prompt—and wouldn’t you know it, as soon as the new route was chosen, 10-minutes was trimmed from our arrival time.
Assuming we were good to go on the Tollway the rest of the way, I was surprised again when the navigation wanted me to exit at the next interchange and again take a surface road into the ‘burbs. Again, it was ignored, and again, our arrival time dropped. And then it happened again, and again, and again—one time suggesting I take the Expressway into the heart of Chicago. And every time I ignored it, our arrival time got earlier and earlier.
By the time we got to the Indiana state line, we had trimmed more than 90-minutes. That would have been an hour-and-a-half waiting at stoplights or in bumper-to-bumper traffic downtown if I had followed the navigation.
The next day, we had just a short drive to our first attraction—but wouldn’t you know it, the road we needed to take to get there was closed for construction. What followed was a tense five minute battle between me and the navigation system as I tried to take other streets to circle around the construction zone, and the GPS demanded that I make U-turns to double back to the intersection blocked off by barricades, barrels, and a big hole in the ground.
For an entire week I locked wits with that system nearly every day, avoiding recommendations to leave major highways to take two-lane country roads between major cities, or it wanting me to getoff at one exit only to get back onto the highway at the next interchange.
In attempting to leave Gettysburg to get to our motor lodge two hours away, the system told me to take a right-hand turn leaving the area at the Eisenhower Farm and follow a country road for about half-a-mile and then drive through an RV campground, loop back around onto the road where I had just come from, and drive back past the Eisenhower Farm to a different country road to connect to the state highway we needed.
The coup de gras, however, came the day we were trying to drive from Lancaster, PA to HersheyWorld in Hershey. After departing the hotel, we took a winding country lane for several miles before I was told to make a left-hand turn onto what it only called “Road”.
Upon getting to the “intersection”, it looked to me like the entrance to a farm. However, I continued to follow the “Road” past a house, farm implements, and a couple barns. I could see another road ahead of me, but the bridge that needed to be there to cross a steep dropoff into a rocky creek…was not there.
For a moment, I recalled the classic scene from the American version of “The Office” where Michael Scott is driving with Dwight Schrute and he follows the GPS in his rental car down a boat launch and into a lake—all the while yelling “The machine knows where it is going!!”. Fortunately, there was a concrete barricade at the end of the “Road” to keep me from suffering a similar fate.
While sheepishly driving back past the farm folks around the barn and the house, the system continued to order me to make a U-turn and head right back from where I came. I pressed on, eventually coming to the intersection that would lead to the road on the other side of the creek—and we continued on our merry way.
This is not the first time I had that kind of experience. Once while visiting Orlando, I played golf with an employee of the Golf Channel, who invited me to stop by the studios that afternoon for a tour. He left for the studio before I did, so I didn’t get to follow him. Instead, I plugged in the address in the car’s navigation system and steered the rental car where it told me to go.
At some point, I was told to take a right-hand turn into what—to me—looked like the entrance to the Orlando Country Club. The GPS continued to have me drive through what sure seemed like a parking lot—then through the bag drop area—and then right past the clubhouse. Next thing I knew, I was driving on a very narrow stretch of asphalt past tees and greens. One group of old ladies looked at me driving a convertible Mustang past them as they were getting ready to hit with looks on their faces like “Why the hell is he driving a car on the golf course?”
After several agonizing minutes of winding through the course (waiting for a marshal, or worse yet, a cop to block my path) I was instructed to take the next left—which appeared to lead to an actual public street again. But wouldn’t you know it, there was a wrought iron gate between me and the road. For a moment, I thought that I was going to have to turn around, take what had to be a cart path back through the course, and try to make it back out of the parking lot. But as luck would have it, as I approached the gate, it automatically opened, and I was able to continue on my way—just as the GPS system had recommended.
(Just for fun last night, I used Google Maps to chart a course from Dubsdread Golf Course—where we had played—to Golf Channel Drive, and it recommends taking Interstate 4. But that is a tollway, so I’m guessing that someone had previously set the GPS to avoid tolls. When you do that on Google Maps, sure enough, it still tells you to drive through the Country Club.)
More than once during the honeymoon I told my new wife that I was done forever with the stupid navigation systems and that I am going back to paper maps. She scoffed at me and called me “old”—but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would be retaining an important skill for the Armageddon that lays ahead of us.
As the killer robots, the autonomous weapons platforms, and the aerial drones are using the GPS systems embedded in their artificial intelligence operating systems—and driving off of roads where there are no longer bridges, or following commands to head down a boat launch into a lake, or circling aimlessly in golf courses and campgrounds–us “map readers” will be staying one step ahead of them, following the actual “fastest route” for escape, and never needing to “recalculate”.
Meanwhile, everyone under the age of 40 will be left to die, staring at the map wondering where the blue dot or the red arrow is to let them know where they are.
