Can Waze Foreshadow AI Innovations at Google?
November 1, 2021
Yep. The article “Waze CEO Admits That Its Algorithm Is Sending Users Awry” triggered a thought on this cloudy and cold Monday morning: What other misdirections are Google smart software delivering. Confidence in one’s smart engineering is one thing; marketing is another.
The write up states:
According to media reports out of Israel where Waze was founded, the navigation app has been giving travelers incorrect directions and has accidentally sent some of its 1 million Israeli users directly into the heart of a traffic jam.
Didn’t Waymo send its smart cars to a dead end street in San Francisco? (See Dead-End SF Street Plagued with Confused Waymo Cars Trying to Turn Around Every 5 Minutes.”
The Phonearena article I read reported:
Waze CEO Guy Berkowitz admitted that “We have a problem with the algorithm. The more people we serve, the more it’s affected. The coronavirus has put us in a situation where we have to reinvent our algorithm.”
But I thought Snorkel type innovations allowed fast learning and other “almost smarter than a temp worker” type adaptations?
Nope. I learned:
A change in traffic patterns in Israel has screwed up Waze’s algorithm leading to incorrect directions.
The article suggests that the issue is Israel specific. Nice assertion, but I don’t believe it. Fancy Dan systems can drift. Let’s hope those “smart decisions” don’t demonstrate the flawed design of the snorkels needed when a Waymo drives off the Bay bridge into the chilly water.
Stephen E Arnold, November 1, 2021
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