I had a spare day for a North West day trip, so I decided to take the lazy approach. People are using ChatGPT as their counsellors, confidantes, and their personal assistants these days. So, I decided to see if A.I. could plan a travel itinerary for me. I gave it some basic preliminary information:
“Hi ChatGPT, I would like to go for a day trip to a city in the North West of England. I will only have three hours to spend there, so can you make me an itinerary? I haven’t decided which city to go to yet, so maybe you can also decide that. Oh, it must be a direct train journey, with no swapping of trains to maximise the time there. It is also a cold January day, so please pick somewhere that is not too grim tomorrow”.
I always say please, so that in the forthcoming Robot Uprising, I will be shown mercy. The A.I. set to work and told me that that this was a wonderful, quirky idea.
With my ego suitably inflated, it told me that it had decided on Manchester for the itinerary. It asked if that was OK. I said ‘Yes’.
The Blind Leading the Blind
I then sneaked a peek at the weather forecast and it said it would be 4°C (39°F), with no rain. Four degrees is fairly typical, even good, for this time of year, but NOT RAINING? In Manchester?
That is the stuff of dreams! The entire country could be having a heatwave (it’s not), and Manchester would still sit under a sulky, dark cloud. So, this was the equivalent of a Mancunian heatwave; I made a mental note to pack my flip-flops.
ChatGPT gave me four options and I scanned them quickly. They began at Manchester Piccadilly train station. It then stated that I would go in a loop around the city centre and back to Piccadilly. I picked Option B.
It said ‘Bip, Bop, Beep’, and started to do what weirdly over-familiar LLMs do. It started planning my itinerary with alarming knowledge of the kind of things I am into.
As I tend not to share my life with A.I. assistants, this unsettled me. But I was determined to follow the bot wherever it took me.
I got up bright and early and took a bus into town, ready for what the day might bring. What the day might bring was a 90-minute train delay, because of something.
I mean, he explained it, but only after he had sold me the ticket. I pretended to listen, but I had cartoon steam coming out of my ears blocking inward information.
This was not the fault of the A.I.; this was good old-fashioned rail company rage-baiting. I had a mediocre breakfast in a nearby café and attempted to read my book through my wrong glasses. After misreading the same line 11 times, I gave up and went back to the train station.
It was then that I found out that my train was terminating at Manchester Oxford Road. I must point out that the rail company had not conspired in this instance.
Apparently, travel to Piccadilly from my town ceased years ago. 2018, to be precise. A.I. was very helpful with providing that information.
Rage Against the A.I. Machine
Less than 12 hours prior, it made four itineraries from that train station. I would now have to walk a mile to get there and a mile back. I looked at Google Maps, wondering how I could salvage this.
But something deep in my soul stirred. “I was determined to follow the bot wherever it took me”, my soul said, profoundly and italically. I decided to go with the flow.
If you knew me, you would know that is like asking a hydrophobic nun to windsurf. (Why I became a nun in that analogy is beyond me, even). Going with the flowing was to be my destiny. Flowing with the going.
I decided to calm myself by reading some more of the book I couldn’t read, as the towns flew by. Eventually, I gave up and wondered about what I would see on my bespoke itinerary. I had deliberately ignored the contents and told myself I would only find out outside Manchester Piccadilly.
I arrived at Oxford Road at 1.03 pm. This meant I had 3 ½ hours of daylight to get around the tour. Factoring in the mile there and back, I was down to 2 ¾ hours of meaningful meandering time.
My first stop was to be Manchester Central Library in St. Peter’s Square. I set my walking boots to ‘Go’ mode and off my legs went.
Manchester Central Library is lovely on the outside, although I wouldn’t have guessed it was built in 1934. On the inside, it is a library.
I know that doesn’t sound terribly shocking, but I was expecting something along the lines of John Rylands Library. The inside is modern and utilitarian, much like its oddly characterless website. Maybe it was lovely, and I just missed the nice bits (the library, not the website).
Where next? I groaned as soon as I saw the next place: Manchester Art Gallery. Not because I am against a bit of culture, but because it was a Monday.
Most museums and art galleries take a day off on Mondays, because most normal, sane people are at work. But I was not a normal, sane person. I was a person under the control of the finest technology man has to offer.
Losing the Faith
I had a closer look at the Google Maps route that ChatGPT had served up for my next destination. To tell you I was shocked, dear reader, is the understatement of the decade.
The map looked like a pinball trajectory. Our old friend, Mr Artificial Intelligence, didn’t realise that us humans like to go in a loop, when out for a walk.
This was a loop, but with so many internal haphazard angles, it resembled a pentagram. So, I did the unthinkable and ditched the A.I. map.
I later tried to recreate the map at home. I think it would have taken about 6 or 7 hours to walk around, while constantly passing the same things.
Manchester Against the Clock
I went to see a statue of the very famous Mr Alan Turing, cryptanalyst and the O.G. computer scientist. He was sitting rather lonelily in a park in Sackville Gardens. I told him what had become of computing since his day, with A.I. and all, and I’m sure he sighed.
Sackville Gardens runs adjacent to Canal Street, famous for being the centre of Manchester’s Gay Village. The street looked quite sedate and demure on a January Monday.
Time was now at a premium. I opted to find a place that I had seen photos of on all the tourist maps but had never seen myself. The name was even quite delightful: Shambles Square.
So, I hot footed it to the Manchester Cathedral. I knew Shambles Square was close by. When I got there, after talking to the world’s chattiest community police officer, it was really very charming.
Even the grim January light didn’t put me off. I love architecture like this, and Shambles seemed an apt name. It was lovely and lived-in looking.
A couple of brave souls were sitting outside with their freezing cold pints. I couldn’t work out if they were admirable or crazy (why not both?!).
I then visited the cathedral, but I will save that for another post.
Final Thoughts
A.I. has come a LONG way, but not far enough to be a decent or responsible tour guide. While it does a good job of stroking our egos, it fails to recognise the very essence of humanity. That is, our ability to maximise our own potential instead of bouncing around like a demented DVD logo.
One very final thought. An anagram for Artificial Intelligence, and a fitting description, is:
I CAN’T CARE. IF TELLING; I LIE.
