When AI Gives Bad Directions: A Cautionary Tale

TechCrunch recently reported on a group of hikers who needed rescue after relying on Google's Gemini AI chatbot to plan their trip up Mount Shasta. The hikers brought far too little food and water, started their climb at the wrong time, and ended up stranded overnight. This story is not just about outdoor adventure — it’s a sharp reminder that AI tools can be dangerously wrong when used without human oversight.

The incident shows that even the most advanced AI models can give advice that is incomplete or even harmful. These hikers followed what sounded like reasonable instructions, but the plan failed because the AI did not understand real-world constraints like terrain difficulty, daylight hours, or the physical limits of a human body. For Australian businesses, this raises a red flag about trusting AI for critical decisions.

Why This Matters Beyond the Trail

Many small and mid-sized businesses in Australia are excited about using AI for everything from customer service to supply chain planning. But the Mount Shasta rescue is a perfect analogy: if you let an AI make a hiking plan without checking the actual conditions, you end up lost and in trouble. In business, that trouble can mean lost revenue, compliance failures, or damaged reputation.

The real issue is not that AI is useless. It’s that AI is a tool — not a decision-maker. It can summarize data, suggest options, and automate routine tasks, but it cannot replace human judgment, local knowledge, or common sense. Australian businesses that adopt AI must treat it like a junior assistant: always verify its outputs against trusted sources, regulations, and real-world experience.

What This Means for Australian SMBs

For small and mid-sized businesses across Australia, the lesson is clear: AI can help you plan a project, draft a contract, or schedule staff, but you must double-check every critical detail. A chatbot does not know if your supplier is in a flood zone, if your software license expires next week, or if your customer’s data must stay onshore under Australian privacy law. Relying solely on AI for such decisions is as risky as hiking up Mount Kosciuszko without a map.

Australian businesses also face unique challenges like bushfire seasons, regional internet outages, and complex tax rules. An AI trained on global data may not understand these local factors. The best approach is to use AI as a starting point, then apply human expertise to adapt its suggestions to your specific context. That’s how you stay safe — and stay efficient.

What You Can Do Now

  • Audit your AI usage. Identify any business process where you currently rely on AI-generated information without human review. Start with customer-facing outputs and compliance-sensitive tasks.
  • Create a “human-in-the-loop” policy. Require that any decision with financial, legal, or safety implications be reviewed by a qualified person before it is implemented.
  • Train your team on AI limits. Run a short internal workshop showing examples of AI mistakes — like the hiking incident — so everyone understands why verification matters.
  • Use AI for assistance, not authority. Keep AI in a supportive role: drafting, summarising, or brainstorming. Never let it be the final decision-maker for anything that could harm your business.
  • Test AI outputs against your real-world data. Feed your own company information into the AI and compare its recommendations with what actually worked in the past. Adjust your prompts accordingly.

At MS&VG, we help Australian small and mid-sized businesses adopt technology that works — safely and practically. If you want to explore AI the right way, without the risk of getting lost, our team can guide you through a sensible digital transformation that puts human judgment first.