AI chatbots can help plan a vacation or suggest what to pack. But there are situations where advice from someone who actually knows what they are doing is the safer choice.
As reported by the Chicago Tribune, three novice hikers from Roseville, California, had to be rescued from Mount Shasta after becoming stranded overnight. According to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, they had used Google Gemini to help plan the climb. The sheriff’s office said Gemini advised the group to carry far less food and water than they needed.
An eight-hour hike turned into an overnight rescue
The group started toward the summit at around 3 a.m. on Sunday. Hikers are advised to turn around if they have not reached the summit by noon, but the three continued and eventually reached the top at around 7 p.m.
Things went wrong on the descent. They lost their route in the dark and ended up in Mud Creek Canyon instead of staying on the Clear Creek Route. One of the hikers had also injured his knee, forcing the group to spend the night in a steep drainage before rescuers reached them the following morning.
The sheriff’s office advised hikers to carry multiple methods of navigation, including an offline option, and recommended calling the local U.S. Forest Service ranger station before attempting the climb. It also specifically warned people not to rely solely on AI for trip planning.
AI can give advice, but it cannot replace experience
Similar problems have surfaced when people turned to AI for legal and medical advice. We previously covered a lawyer who used ChatGPT for legal research, only to discover that the cases it cited did not exist. He even asked ChatGPT to confirm they were real, and the chatbot said they were. A study testing ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, and DeepSeek also found that roughly half of their answers to medical questions were flawed or incomplete, while some included fabricated references.
Chatbots have their uses, but getting a plausible answer is not good enough when a mistake could put someone’s health, safety, or livelihood at risk. Advice from a professional or experienced expert should come first. At the very least, AI-generated information should be checked against reliable sources before anyone acts on it.
Even the chatbots themselves tell users not to take everything they say at face value. Gemini carries the warning, “Gemini is AI and can make mistakes.” Cases like this are a good reminder of why that warning is there.
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