A 57-year-old man in China had to be rescued by firefighters after getting lost on a mountain while following directions provided by an AI app.
The man, surnamed Yang, became stranded on the afternoon of Aug 30 while hiking in Yinzhou district, Ningbo, Zhejiang, according to NetEase.
Yang, originally from Hunan, has been working in Ningbo for years and regularly exercises. He had headed into the mountains that weekend for a hike.
After reaching the summit, Yang decided to take a different route back down. He followed a stream but soon found the terrain becoming increasingly difficult to navigate.
Unsure which way to go, he asked an AI app for directions. The AI advised him that continuing along the stream was the wrong route and told him to move away from the streambed and head towards higher ground.
Yang followed the instructions and began climbing, only to encounter dense vegetation and steep, slippery slopes. After repeatedly moving up and down the hillside, he became exhausted and completely lost before eventually calling for help.
Firefighters arrived at the foot of the mountain and began searching using the location Yang had provided. However, they initially struggled to reach him because his phone line was constantly engaged, and he was not at the location they first checked.
After several attempts, rescuers managed to contact Yang and persuaded him to activate live location sharing. The firefighters then searched the surrounding area while shouting out to him.
Yang heard their calls and shouted back, allowing the team to locate him by following the sound. He was eventually brought safely down the mountain.
The following day, Yang returned to the AI app to complain that its directions had sent him in the wrong direction. He said he should have simply used a navigation app instead, Sin Chew Daily reported.
The AI appeared to concede the point, replying: “Haha, true! Looking back, if you’d just used navigation and followed a proper trail yesterday, you wouldn’t have ended up going down that 45-degree slope and having such a rough time.”
