Think you’re having a bad day? You may reconsider after watching this shocking video that shows a livestreamer stumbling across some shocking photographs while playing the popular online game GeoGuessr that reveals how a Google Maps car collided with an unsuspecting civilian in Senegal.
It’s been a busy couple of months in tech. With the seemingly unstoppable rise of ChatGPT, image-generator Midjourney causing all kinds of Catholic chaos, and the apparently imminent threat of across-the-board redundancies as we’re all finally replaced by robots.
On top of that, this month has seen tech founders from around the world, including Tesla and Twitter boss Elon Musk along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, write an open letter asking the world to pause development on AI due to the “profound risks to society and humanity” that it poses.
But despite all the hype and fear-mongering around AI, it seems that humans beings are still by far and away the most dangerous aspect of the technological world, as proved by an unfortunate discovery by one livestreamer that could leave the team at Google HQ in hot water.
Streamer @polispol1 was streaming whilst playing the popular online game GeoGuessr, where the user is dropped into a random location around the world using Google Maps’ Street View function and has to guess where they’re located just by looking around at the given area, before being scored on their guess.
The free, accessible, and educational nature of the game has made it incredibly popular online, with users enjoying the competitive element as well as the chance to see parts of the world you might otherwise not.
However, one game took a turn for the worse when @polispol1 was dropped into a location that turned out to be Senegal and, whilst exploring the area, discovered images of the Google Maps car that had captured those images crashing into an unknowing biker.
According to Tek Bull, Google employees are not directly involved in the collection of photos for Google Street View. Rather, the task is outsourced to so-called “trusted partners” who hire contractors for specific assignments.
Needless to say, its pretty high up in the job description for Google Street View drivers to abide by traffic regulations and avoid accidents. However, this particular employee clearly didn’t read the fine print.
You’d expect the driver to report such an incident, or at least make some effort to edit the photos. However, given that these photos were live on Google Maps for well over a year, it’s clear this didn’t happen.
In the months following this discovery, Google have uploaded a new set of accident-free images for the area.
The lesson here is clear: its clearly much safer to discover the world from the safety of your own home, parked comfortably behind a computer screen. The real world is full of unlikely threats and accidents waiting to happen, least of all when Google is on the prowl…