When GPS Starts Improvising
Jazz is proof that improvisation can be brilliant. My GPS keeps proving otherwise.
Improvisation works beautifully when John Coltrane does it. It’s less impressive when the navigation system decides your twelve-minute drive needs a fresh interpretation.
GPS technology was supposed to end the era of getting lost. Instead, we now get lost with professional guidance.
Turn left. No, the other left. Make a U-turn. Recalculating. Take the next exit. Ignore the road you’re currently driving on. Then comes the reassuring blue line suggesting that everything is proceeding exactly as planned.
It isn’t.
That same confidence appears in When GPS Says Recalculating, where one wrong turn gives the navigation system an opportunity to reconsider the entire relationship. And When the Car Drives Itself shows what happens when automotive technology gets even more ambitious about making decisions for us.
Jazz musicians improvise because they know exactly what they’re doing.
GPS improvises because apparently we missed Oak Street.
Explore more Chad Geepeety™ cartoons about GPS, cars, navigation, artificial intelligence, and technology confidently telling us where to go.
