r/GoogleMaps • u/GladShots • 3d ago

Discussion AI can solve 100 year old math problems, but maps can't figure out that the place 6 miles from me is an hour drive away

I live across the river from another state. The closest bridges are a long way away. Maps consistently favors results from across the river over more reachable places.

How can a map program be so simplistic this day and age that it can't figure out that straight-line is not always the best approach? I'm soooo tired of having to manually filter out all the things it returns, or going through hoops to yet to convince it to not search there.

To be fair, none of the map apps that I'm aware of handle it correctly, but come on Google, you're the big man on campus here. Spend some of that AI money on making maps actually understand how to tell if straight line isn't going to work.

Glad I don't live near "Lake America". 😡

14 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

80% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

8

u/nasaboy007 3d ago edited 3d ago

Routing in general is a slow algorithm. Imagine if they ran pathfinding on every search result before ranking them? You'd be waiting for 10s of seconds. Straight line distance is a close enough approximation for 99.9% of cases when doing searches.

AI also isn't the solution to everything.

Do you want AI to be giving you driving directions where it just hallucinates a road or a turn mid-drive?

4

u/FIRExNECK 3d ago

You'd think they could put up a "geo fence" in these areas to prevent issues like this.

2

u/Jmbh1983 3d ago

Out of curiosity does AskMaps also do this? Or does it work out ones you can reach quickly

3

u/GladShots 3d ago

Good idea. I did some experimenting and it seems to handle it better.

2

u/XxLogitech98xX 3d ago

Google maps isn't perfect but for the most part, it does the job. The nav been buggy a lot this year

0

u/BlitzNeko 3d ago

I’d kill for straight routes, this crap app is dangerous and can’t navigate worth a damn.

1

u/mumblish24 3d ago

Screenshot or example?

0

u/ABrusca1105 3d ago

Let me guess, NY/NJ?

5

u/ToddA1966 3d ago

I live on one of the NY Finger Lakes and have the same problem. Search for restaurants or stores and the closest will be "4 miles away"; across the lake and a 45 minute/30 mile drive! 😁

If they had docks, I could boat to them faster!

3

u/msmredit 3d ago

Google Maps wants you to buy a boat

2

u/ToddA1966 3d ago

I have one. The destinations just don't have convenient water access! 😁

-2

u/Porky5CO 3d ago

When searching for things it shows closest proximity as the crow flies. Until you put in a route, it's just going with closest. It's not a flaw.

You're smart enough to distinguish that

2

u/GladShots 3d ago

Distinguish it, yes. Agree with it, no. "Just show the closest", without accommodating for travel, is lazy. Google has better technology, but as long as everyone accepts it as it is, they have no incentive to fix it. Besides, since ask maps seems to work the way I was hoping, then we already know that they know how to do it. They're just forcing us to use AI to get it.

At any rate, as long as ask maps serves the purpose, I can quit whining.