Posted on 03/24/2023 5:56:15 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Planning a trip overseas but not sure what to do, or where to start? Using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool might free yourself from some of that stress.
This was what one Singaporean TikTok user Mel did, when she used the Notion AI writing assistant to help plan her 12-day solo trip to Hanoi, Vietnam.
Her bare-bones list simply included places she wanted to visit, such as Sapa and Halong Bay, as well as her arrival and return dates. She then left it to the AI bot to work its magic.
And map out a detailed itinerary, it did.
The suggestions which the AI bot spat out in quick succession were clearly annotated and split into the different days.
For example, Day 1 included a short list of things to do, such as "Check in to hotel" (how perceptive), before suggesting other places to visit such as "Explore Old Quarter" and "Visit Hoan Kiem Lake".
Day 2 included more suggestions of places of interest to visit, and we observed that on days where travelling between cities would be expected, the AI bot was smart enough not to overload the schedule. Not bad.
Based on sample itineraries we Googled online, the list pretty much covered the area's main attractions, including the famous Train Street and the Hanoi Night Market.
It even threw in food recommendations, though oddly, two of them were for "Chicago Pizza" and another Italian joint. The two eateries, however, appear to be highly rated online, and we guess they are options when one tires of local flavours?
We noticed also that the bot seemed to run out of steam by the end, offering only three suggestions (two of them food places) on Day 10 and for Day 11.
Also, the two activities listed were located in the city of Hoi An — a 14.5-hour drive away from Hanoi, according to Google Maps.
The recommendation to visit Ba Na Hills on Day 8 was also misguided as the attraction is near Da Nang, also located further down south.
Regardless of the itinerary's perceived flaws, it was definitely enough to draw some inspiration from, at least.
Make sure to double check yourself, netizens advise Speaking to AsiaOne, Mel admitted that she was surprised by the results by Notion AI, as well as the response from netizens to her clip.
The video has since gone viral with close to 1.3 million views and around 400 comments.
"I was honestly surprised that [the tool] planned out a day-by-day schedule," said Mel, sharing how she'd seen another TikTok user using Notion AI for their travel itinerary and decided to try it out for herself.
While she had initially considered using the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, it was down that day, "so Notion AI it was".
Nonetheless, many commenters on her video appeared to be similarly awestruck by the results.
"This can't be real," wrote one netizen in disbelief.
"This is amazing," said another, adding that the AI tool's help meant "less stress" for travellers planning their itinerary.
However, many also cautioned Mel about the dangers of revealing one's travel itinerary online.
"I guess they were genuinely concerned for my safety and that is so sweet of them," said Mel, 28, who's the co-founder and director of social media agency Two Sleepy Heads.
Some commenters who have utilised AI tools to plan their travel journeys chimed in with their advice to always double-check results from such AI bots as they can often be inaccurate.
One noted that such itineraries wouldn't work as "it doesn't factor in travel time".
Sharing that she knew better than to "follow the itinerary blindly", Mel acknowledged that the tool had at least helped her get started.
"The AI-generated itinerary was just to get me started and to do more research on the places to go visit," shared Mel.
"Someone commented that the real itinerary is in the comments, and I totally agree."
She added: "I'm glad that this video did magic and helped provide travel tips to not just me, but to the TikTok community as well."
Tough luck, sister.
AI used your credit card and booked the tickets in its own name.
I’ve used chatgpt to create 2 week training courses on various topics with reference materials and youtube videos for each lesson.
It does a great job picking sub topics and creating a course syllabus.
What it failed at, was the youtube videos. Most of them were no longer available on youtube. But with the topic and the original title of the video, it was pretty easy to find replacement videos.
Tour guides are now obsolete.
I find ChatGPT to be really helpful. For example I was checking on the fall of the Star Wars movies and rather than search on TheNumbers and/or BoxOfficeMojo, then calculated the CPI to get them in current day dollars. OR, just ask ChatGPT:
“Give me the worldwide Box Office for the movies in the Star Wars franchise adjusted for inflaton.”
Boom, it gave me the list (which is as I suggested, eps VII-IX lost money).
I use it as an aggregator for all kinds of things as the come into my head. And what is great is you can follow up. So I coul have said “what about the net profit?” and it would have produced the list.
Just for the heck of it, I asked it to tell me about the Peloponnesian War in the style of Dr. Suess and it created a VERY clever rhyming poem about it.
If I was a college or HS teacher I would be VERY scared of ChatGPT because it does not appear to repeat itself and you can even ask it to change its style.
The Pelopennesian War in AnapestIC Tetrameter?
It can be extremely helpful. But it does suffer from what they call “the hallucination problem”. It makes things up that aren’t true.
I asked it for how to set a global setting in some software.
It gave me detailed instructions on how to drill into the administrative settings and change the setting. Very logical location for the setting but the setting didn’t exist.
So I told it the option didn’t exist and clarified the version I was working with. Again it gave me very detailed instructions that were different from the first. And again it was a very logical location where the setting might exist. But again no setting.
After talking with the software vendor there is no global setting for what I wanted to do.
Some of it’s coding doesn’t always work. Out of date functions, or syntax. But it’s 97% correct.
I have tried ChatGpt too, and it’s surprisingly effective. however its knowledge is programmed to only September 2021. It doesn’t know anything about the latest high-tech gear for example.
WriteSonic on the other hand is way more powerful and has the knowledge of the entire World Wide Web, updated in real time... pretty powerful.
>>The Pelopennesian War in AnapestIC Tetrameter?<<
Try it!
>>Some of it’s coding doesn’t always work. Out of date functions, or syntax. But it’s 97% correct.<<
Yes - it is helpful but as an assistant not as some”one” you would want to be in the lead.
Soon people will be using AI to schedule their bathroom visits.
As long as it can come up a good banh mi shop, cool.
CC
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I would think that finding Chicago pizza in Hanoi would be about as hard as finding a green burrito in Northumberland, but there is a place in Hanoi called Cowboy Jack's that does, indeed, serve Chicago pizza.
Right, it’s great for doing cognitive grunt work but needs a person to do quality control.
I frankly am amazed at how good of a tool AI is turning out to be. I think it’s safe to say that it’s going to yield huge efficiencies that will increase our quality of life. IMO the risks are overstated although there will be bumps in the road when implementation starts to really happen.
I’m looking forward to using a HoloDeck.
Forget the actual nuisance traveling.
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