My GPS argued with my own eyes for 20 miles near Nashville

So I was driving back from a client site in Franklin last Tuesday and the rental car's navigation kept telling me to exit onto a highway that was literally closed with orange barrels and a big sign saying 'ROAD CLOSED AHEAD'. I ignored it twice, exited where I knew was right, and the voice got all snippy saying 'recalculating' every 30 seconds. That made me think about how much I trust AI navigation over my own common sense, you know? I kept second guessing myself because the software insisted there was a faster way, even though I could see the construction crew packing up for the day. It finally rerouted me onto a back road that added 25 minutes, and when I got to my hotel, the valet said that closed exit has been blocked for two weeks. Has anyone else had a moment where an AI system was so confidently wrong that it made you doubt what you were seeing with your own two eyes?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

piperwhite7d ago

The part about doubting your own eyes is the scary bit. My sister had the same thing in Atlanta last month, her map kept saying turn left onto a one way street and she actually started to do it because the screen felt more sure than her own memory of the road. That is what gets me about these systems, the voice never sounds unsure, it just says recalculating in that flat tone like you are the problem. Two weeks of a closed exit and it still routes you there tells you nobody is really checking, so why do we hand over the wheel, literally, to something that has never once seen a road.

3