IT News on October 10th: The New York Times published a blog post on October 8th reporting that a 16-year-old hiker from Canada, after using Claude to plan the route for Crown Mountain ( Crown Mountain ), accidentally ended up on "Widow Maker Ridge" ( Widowmaker Arete ), which requires rock climbing equipment. The hiker was eventually rescued successfully by helicopter.

16-year-old Blaze Vincent Gorriluk ( Bryce Vincent Gowryluk ) set off from his home in downtown Vancouver at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 3rd, local time. His original plan was to travel from the top of Granville Island to Crown Mountain and then return, with the entire journey expected to take about 8 hours.

Since he had previously reached the summit of Crown Mountain, he utilized the chatbot Claude to try and plan a new hiking route. However, the hiker mistakenly identified the "Widow Maker Ridge" as the "Crown Ice Slot" ( Crown Couloir ). The former is located on the mountain itself, with steep and exposed slopes that usually require ropes and other climbing equipment; the latter was the route he originally intended to climb.

After climbing for a certain distance without any tools, Bryce found that the terrain became increasingly difficult, making it impossible to return safely along the same path. He got stuck on a rock ledge that was about 5 feet wide. After contacting his mother, he called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who then notified the Vancouver Volunteer Search and Rescue Team North Shore Rescue. The rescue team subsequently dispatched a helicopter to successfully rescue him. IT attached the relevant screenshots below:

Goriluk said that he does not blame Claude and takes responsibility for this route selection himself. He also stated that both Google Maps and AllTrails were used during the planning process. The report did not further explain what route information each of these tools provided.

Paul Markey, the person in charge of the rescue, stated that he does not know the actual location and terrain, and that experience and common sense acquired by mountaineers on the trails cannot be replaced.

Related Reading:

Californian hikers in the United States trusted Google's route information too much, Gemini, and ended up trapped on the mountain.

A man followed the advice of AI to take a shortcut down the mountain and got trapped in the deep mountains. Afterwards, AI admitted, "If I had just followed the navigation directly, I wouldn't have suffered such a great misfortune."