Chatbots Struggle to Live Up to Travel Planning Hype
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AI companies often suggest using their chatbots to plan trips, but the itineraries are often impractical or flawed. For example, Microsoft's Copilot created an unrealistic 8-stop itinerary for one day in LA.
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In theory chatbots should be good at travel planning because there's lots of online data about destinations. But in practice they struggle to create customized, logical itineraries.
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Researchers tested chatbots from OpenAI, Microsoft, and others on creating sample travel plans. None successfully answered more than 0.6% out of 1,000 test queries.
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The chatbots failed due to reasoning errors, making things up, and not tailoring to constraints like budget and dates. They suggest visiting nonexistent festivals.
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Chatbots have potential but their best uses now are less "sexy" than travel planning - things like drug discovery and protein design. The travel planning hype reminds us AI still has limitations.