Three young people who resorted to Gemini to prepare for an ascent to the mountain Shastain Californiaended up needing a rescue after getting lost during relegation on August 30. According to the Chicago Tribune, they had used the artificial intelligence assistant of Google to consult the route and decide what to take to this mountain of 4,322 meters of altitude.
The problem with Gemini’s recommendations was in the amount of provisions they had to transport. County Sheriff’s Office Siskiyou explained that AI ‘He advised them to bring much less food and water than the group needed, especially when the ascent they had planned to complete in eight hours ended up becoming an odyssey of several days’.
The three novice hikers also made mistakes that complicated their return from the summit. They reached the summit at seven in the afternoon despite the fact that it is recommended to turn around if you have not reached it before noon. This delay forced them to go down the steep slopes when it had already gotten dark.
During the descent they called the sheriff’s office for directions, but ended up detouring into the canyon. Mud Creek. one of them He injured his knee and the group had to spend the night there. The next morning, U.S. Forest Service rangers and search and rescue volunteers located them and helped them return safely..
The authorities took advantage of the case to warn about the risks of delegating these preparations to a chatbot. ‘It is always advisable to call your local US Forest Service ranger station on Mount Shasta before embarking on your trip to ensure you have the most accurate information. You should never rely exclusively on AI to plan an expedition‘, noted the sheriff’s office.
Other hikers already had to ask for help last year after consulting ChatGPT to climb a mountain near vancouver. They were wearing sneakers and had not anticipated that they would still encounter snow at the beginning of May.
Also last year, two tourists tried to reach a non-existent ‘Sacred Canyon of Humantay’, in the Andesfollowing information generated by AI. A guide who overheard their conversation warned them of the danger.
‘You have to plan for altitude, climate changes and the accessibility of roads. When you use a program like ChatGPT, which combines images and names to create a fantasy, you can end up at 4,000 meters above sea level without oxygen or phone coverage.‘, explained the guide Miguel Ángel Góngora Meza to the BBC.