Artificial Un-intelligence is here. Our car has OnStar which will guide you turn by turn to any destination by GPS. It speaks and has voice recognition to listen for my commands.
We also have a dash mounted Magellan mobile GPS, which also speaks and also has voice recognition for my commands.
And I also have an excellent Lowrance handheld GPS which is more technically and detail oriented than most.
We were testing them to see which we preferred so had all three operating on our 3,200 mile Minnesota–>Texas–>Minnesota trip.
So with each turn, all three GPS devices offered their opinion about the best way to proceed. Most of the time they somewhat agreed, but occasionally one said "go straight" and another said "turn right"… ? What to do? One GPS said "Do you want freeways or the route with the most restrooms…If you prefer freeway please answer Yes or No" (waiting for an answer). …Another said "You’re off course and are in someone’s driveway, do you want to re-route, Please answer Yes or No". It seems the first GPS while waiting for an answer (yes or no) heard the second GPS clearly say "NO" and the first GPS responded with "OK, I’ll re-route you with the most restrooms" to which I responded "NO" to which the second GPS said "OK, I will not reroute, … should I recalculate to go back on course? Please answer Yes or No"… "Yes" I shouted. The first GPS said in a stern voice "You must answer either yes OR no, but not both" …. To which the second GPS said "BOTH is not a valid response….. Please answer Yes or No". So then the GPS’s started arguing with each other and paid no attention to me and my wishes.
While the dueling GPS's were arguing and telling me where to go (hmmm), we stopped where there were restrooms and had coffee and looked at an atlas.
Note: While OnStar is an excellent product and is hands-free, we decided to go with the other two (yes, two) because they don’t have a monthly fee. They all work very well.
