On the road…again!
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

 

AI Disclaimers Should Be Taken Seriously

For a traveler who wants to revisit places he/she had known in the past, both Google Earth and AI assistance are quick and often precise aids to getting there.  The Footloose Forester has recently begun an open-ended project to find the sites of the many places where he has lived or worked.  He is talking about Asia, Africa, Europe, Central America, and a few states in the USA.

The use of digital geographic coordinates is hands-down the quickest, most modern, and most convenient way to get to that spot on a map.  AI systems already incorporate digital coordinates, and Google Earth offers them as one of a few other options in map notation. Together, visiting old haunts becomes a family game for some, a research chore for others, and even a look into history for those who are wondering about the before-and-after conditions on the ground through the passage of time.                                                                                                    

AI systems acknowledge that they can make mistakes and sometimes use outdated sources; hence, there still exists a modicum of uncertainty.  Google Earth, however, uses the same coordinates throughout its historical catalogue of satellite images.  That is to say, the coordinates noted in the margins of Google Maps will remain the same, even as the features on the ground change over time.  Searchers using old maps will still have to interpret changes, if they are able.

For a Footloose Forester hoping to pinpoint the location of the St. Dominic’s Roman Catholic Church in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, he is still unsatisfied.  Upon asking Copilot first, the map marker got very close to the location where he remembers going to church 60 years ago.  Close, but not within the compound grounds where the church was in 1966.  

 stick pin on right was site of massacre of 17 churchgoers by Pakistani Taliban

But based on the size, shape, and number of buildings within the present-day compound walls, the church probably no longer exists at that site.  There is much more that could be said about what was, and what is today.  Unfortunately, the suite of Google Earth historical maps does not go back as far as 1966.

Just as Wikipedia depends on user input, so too do AI systems rely on reliable input to correct and update their records and reliable algorithms. And that is why Footloose Forester is making this chronicle part of an ongoing project with the help of his AI mentor, AI Matey.