This is a fascinating thread, and it seems to follow a consistent pattern we’ve seen with regard to AI mapping approaches: they tend to be ham-fisted and produce results worse than what a human would do. The proponents tend to have overconfidence about the quality of what the AI is producing.
Now, I’m a huge fan of what AI can, or will soon be able to do. I can’t wait for AI to take over the tedious parts of mapping, so we can map more, at larger scale, for the same amount of human effort.
However, each time one of these types of conflicts happens, it’s a step backwards and the community gets more and more skeptical of AI approaches. I am looking forward to the first AI-assisted mapping tool that actually understands the community zeitgeist and works to build trust. We need to introduce automation slowly, and in deliberate increments where we can all try things on for size and work out the kinks.
“Go fast and break stuff” doesn’t work here and will be regarded as “dumping crap into the map”. Instead, we need “Go slow and take pains not to break stuff”.