[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by subego 

For years, Waze and I have had a disagreement about the ideal route to the expressway.

About 6 months ago it started agreeing with me.

This creeps me the fuck out… I got into a fight with an AI.

I had that with Apple Maps. I live in a village suburb. Five years ago, the main intersection was replaced with a roundabout (which eliminated virtually all of the constant traffic jams).

A couple hundred meters from my home, it always wanted me to hike a right to get directly to the main street to head into town. Problem is, if I take that route, I have to make a left turn onto the main road, which can take *ages*, depending upon traffic.

So I always drove past that right turn to the next corner and turned right *there*, where the street would lead me directly to the roundabout, with hardly any waiting.

A few months ago, Maps finally started agreeing with me.

I wonder if it's just a matter of collecting enough empirical data from drivers like us to be able to automatically make a better judgement?

[subego]

I’m assuming it’s a combo. It needed our empirical data, but is using AIs to crunch the torrent of data it’s constantly fed. Edit: Waze is a Google joint, so I assume they’re deeper into the AI, in addition to them having probably an order of magnitude (or more) difference in the amount of data involved.

My own secret route, now exposed to the world, is there’s a mile-and-a-half stretch down a side street which somehow ended up with only two stoplights and zero uncontrolled intersections.

However, I want to give Waze full credit for teaching me there’s a point where to get to the expressway it’s best for me to go in the opposite direction of my destination. Even though that’s a longer trip by distance, it gets me on the expressway sooner, and I make up the extra distance with expressway speed.

[Thorzdad]

A rogue time-warp apparently struck our mailbox yesterday. I found an actual Yellow Pages inside.