Off Route

Photo by aotaro from Yokohama, Japan [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Again, using Waze, my faith in trusting AI was tested. While Waze is amazing in many different ways, I often get the feeling that I’m the “B” in an A/B Test for navigation. A few days ago, when navigating a new area, the app sent me far out of the way to get to a location on the other side of the highway.

To assure me that it was simply a bad calculation vs. my time being used in an Waze experiment, I’d expect that Waze would indicate if I were part of an experiment. Maybe there’s a way I could opt in to this, either one time or whenever an experimental route is suggested.

It’s hard to know when we’re being tested through AI. It shouldn’t be.