Subj : Re: ai sucks
To   : KURT WEISKE
From : Mike Powell
Date : Sat Mar 30 2024 09:14:00

>  MP> Transportation issues -- the largest school system in Kentucky hired a
>  MP> company that used AI to help them with bus routes.  The result was a
>  MP> "staggered start" system where kids start and end school at different
>  MP> times.  I forget when the last end time was supposed to be, but it was
>  MP> before 5pm.  On the first day, there are some kids that didn't get home
>  MP> until after 9pm.  The system cancelled school for a week, promising
>  MP> that they'd fix it.

> I haven't seen a public bus system that worked effectively with my two
> kids, and we're talking about a small district (which should be a
> cake-walk). My son ended up having to get to a bus stop over an hour
> before school, and he was one of the last stops on the route!

This happened in the district I used to go to school in back in the
1970s-80s.  We lived on the outskirts of the district
for my high school.  For the mornings, we did have to get out awful early
and for at least the first couple of years we'd usually get to school about
45 minutes before school started.  Afternoons seemed to work pretty
efficient, though.  Getting us to the outskirts depended on traffic that
particular day, but we got home in plenty of time to do homework (not that
I didn't find plenty of time to goof off and not get it done!).

I actually liked getting there early vs. other years/other schools where I
got there real close to starting time, but 45 minutes was pretty early.

Something else I found out is that at least elementary school kids are not
getting any homework any more.  The school system says it is because there
are too many kids who don't have English as a first language but I suspect
it is the result of the bus schedule screw-up, considering that the no
homework policy also started just this year.

> A bus route seems like a place where a human would outperform an AI.
> We're not at tha point where a LLM can come up with a solution without
> human intervention.

I cannot see how they didn't do it without some human intervention.  I
think (but don't know!) that they are blaming the AI and the company to
gloss over the fact that the school system also had some hand in it.  At
the very least, we know they approved it.


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