By Leyland Cecco / The Guardian, TORONTO
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The route up the Widowmaker Arete, a 518m cliff in British Columbia, is deceptively described as “mostly easy slab climbing,” interspersed with “short steep sections that can include finger cracks, blocky face climbing.” It requires careful planning and the right equipment. When 16-year-old Bryce Vincent Gowryluk found himself facing its sheer headwall last week, he had neither. He had asked the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Claude for directions. Gowryluk had to be rescued after those directions proved wildly incorrect, in the latest incident to raise questions about the reliance on digital maps for wilderness navigation.
AI apps appear on a smartphone in Riga, Latvia, on Aug. 7. AI directions have led to a growing number of hikers in distress worldwide.
Photo: Bloomberg
On a Saturday morning, Gowryluk took a gondola up to the top of Grouse Mountain and, while ascending, asked Claude to plan a route to nearby Crown Mountain and back. After navigating scree and more than 600m of elevation gain, the summit promises panoramic views of Greater Vancouver, the Fraser valley and the Capilano watershed. The trek takes eight hours and hiking guides warn it is not for beginners.
As Gowryluk, an indoor climber, navigated down the Crown Pass and up through Crater Slabs and into a boulder-strewn valley, the directions from Claude took him away from the planned course. He found himself at the final headwall of the Widowmaker Arete — a climb that requires ropes, cams and a clear plan for ascent. As he climbed, Gowryluk soon realized the terrain was far too steep and that he was stuck at the base of a cliff. He phoned his mother, then called emergency services for help. Police notified North Shore Rescue, which launched a helicopter, but Gowryluk was too close to the rock face for the rotors, so two members of the rescue team were hoisted down to lift him up. He was flown to the rescue base near the Cleveland Dam. In their debrief the rescue crew said Gowryluk was “far off” his intended route. While the incident could be the first time a hiker got lost because of AI, it is the latest in a string of mishaps in the mountainous region of south-western British Columbia, where hikers increasingly rely on imprecise directions. In July, three people were rescued after they planned a route on the Howe Sound Crest Trail using Google Maps, which gave them wildly inaccurate time estimates, suggesting a route that often takes as long as 14 hours could be done in just more than five. Search manager Paul Markey said that mountaineers should not rely on the directions of AI, and that proper preparation was key.“In this particular case, the boy had a headlamp. He had good clothing. He had a good pair of boots, spare battery and spare food. He was pretty well equipped for hiking and scrambling. But he was certainly not prepared or equipped for rock climbing,” Markey said.“Claude in this particular situation, has never been in the area that this 16-year-old boy found himself in. Claude can only go so far with regard to describing what the area may be like,” Markey said. “There’s definitely a trend towards using electronic applications as opposed to map and compass skills. But there is really no substitute for good map and compass training and education.”He said that in some cases, apps give too much information. “We have found that some of the apps have identified trails in areas where, really, our preference as a rescue team would be that those trails or routes are not actually identified,” he said, adding that people see routes they think are good trails only to get into trouble.“The main thing is: do not blindly rely on AI as a route planning tool,” Markey said. “It can never substitute for good education, good training, a good experience, good decision making in the field.”