# Share your favorite AI assistant fails! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 31, 2022, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461 "2022-05-31T20:51:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/21 "2022-06-01T21:28:48Z")
More GPS oddities, there’s a spot on US-50 in Sacramento where the highway crosses I-5 and some surface streets. The mapping app on my phone often gets confused as to which road I’m on, and starts trying to reroute me back onto highway 50, and starts saying things like “In 100 feet use the ramp to merge back onto US-50”, even though I’m already on US-50. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/22 "2022-06-01T22:21:08Z")
This was quite obviously intended as a joke, but until a few years ago, if you input a UK destination when you lived in the US, it would direct you to the nearest beach and tell you to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/23 "2022-06-01T22:24:00Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > [@ekedolphin](#): > > > > until we decided to stop for the evening in O’Fallon, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis. > > I thought this story was heading somewhere different, since there are both an O’Fallon, Illinois and an O’Fallon, Missouri in the St. Louis area. That was where I thought it was going too… Speaking of St Louis, I grew up in the Florissant area. Florissant was an old French settlement and a lot of the streets are named after French saints. On one trip back home I decided to use the GPS to tell me how to get to mom’s house. I was amused to hear it tell me to “turn right on Street Catherine Street.” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/24 "2022-06-01T22:31:52Z")
It is basically impossible for me to call a taxi in Montreal from anywhere except my apartment. A few days ago, my wife and I were at a local hospital, address 3777 Jean-Brilliant. I called the taxi company, chose to communicate in English (my French is awful) and, as carefully as I could, said 3 7 7 7 Jean-Brilliant. No dice. The English AI module is incapable of parsing French names. Afterwards, I realized I should have tried to say Gene Brilliant (smart). Even a year ago, the machine would have transferred the call to a human being, but a taxi driver, when we finally discovered a stand at the corner, told me that they had fired all their office staff. Once I was in Redmond, WA, where my son lives and I was driving my grandson somewhere. I knew the general area but not the details of where I was going, so I turned on the GPS. It directed me down 95th St. To cross 166th Ave. But that has a lot of traffic and I knew there was a light at 104th St, so I turned right instead, maneuvered into the left lane and was getting ready to turn left onto 194th, when the GPS finished recalculating and directed me to turn right. “Huh?” Both I and grandson said simultaneously. Of course, I turned left and the GPS caught up finally. On another occasion, I was driving a different grandson to something called the 5th Ave. Theater in downtown Seattle. Well I knew what Avenue it was on, but not the street address, but the GPS locator could not find the theater. I had to blunder around downtown Seattle for a while, but eventually did find it. But I really don’t have a lot of confidence in GPS directions. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/25 "2022-06-01T22:39:36Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > This was quite obviously intended as a joke, but until a few years ago, if you input a UK destination when you lived in the US, it would direct you to the nearest beach and tell you to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. This was already an Easter egg when Google Earth first started (how long was this ago, 20 years?), at least if you gave a starting point in Germany, say from Berlin to New York. ETA: I’m sure that today, if I made such an inquiry in Google Maps, I’d get served ads for plane tickets or even cruise lines. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/26 "2022-06-02T01:29:05Z")
I posted this when it happened: on my way to a party at the country club at the golf course in a small town in rural Minnesota. The golf course is next to the interstate highway. Google maps had me stop on the interstate highway, about half a mile from the next exit, and apparently I was supposed to go across the ditch, climb the fence, cross some weeds in a wetland, and walk across the golf course to get to the building. I just went to the exit, made a few right turns, and found the parking lot. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/27 "2022-06-02T01:57:24Z")
Until a few years ago, Google Maps thought there was a street in Manhattan called “Malcolm the Tenth Boulevard.” ---
**Author:** ![Old\_Wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecccb3/32.png) [@Old\_Wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Old_Wench)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/28 "2022-06-02T02:15:48Z")
There’s a town in PA called Bellefonte (pronounced “bell-font”). My Garmin calls it Belephant - rhymes with "elephant.’ I also now call it Belephant. 🐘 ---
**Author:** ![superwombat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superwombat/32/16616_2.png) [@superwombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/superwombat)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/29 "2022-06-02T02:37:25Z")
We have some roads with Indigenous names, and hoo-boy, there’s some E for effort when Maps encounters them. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/30 "2022-06-02T05:00:37Z")
A few weeks ago, I went to a memorial service for the husband of an old colleague, in Chicago’s northwestern suburbs. My Google Maps app took me down Aptakisic Road (pronounced _APT-uh-KISS-ick_, according to the traffic reporters I’ve heard on the radio over the years), and the voice assistant went with _ap-TACK-iz-ick_. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461/31 "2022-06-02T05:01:44Z")
In Wisconsin, there are county highways, which are given letter designations rather than numbers. For example, my parents live near County Highway S. Or as my dad’s Garmin calls it, “County Highway South”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-your-favorite-ai-assistant-fails/965461.md?page=1)