Man, 57, follows AI directions & gets stuck on mountain in China, rescued by firefighters, AI's response: ‘Haha, true!’

A 57-year-old man in China ended up stranded on a mountain after asking an AI for directions, and had to be rescued by firefighters.

The man, surnamed Yang, got lost on the afternoon of Aug. 30 while hiking in Yinzhou district in Ningbo, Zhejiang, according to NetEase.

He went off the trail

Yang, originally from Hunan, has worked in Ningbo for years.

He exercises regularly and had gone up the mountainous area that weekend to hike.

Upon reaching the summit, he decided to try a different route down. He followed a stream, but realised the path got noticeably harder.

Unsure what to do next, he turned to an AI app for directions.

It told him that going down along the stream was the wrong way. Instead, he should move away from the streambed and head for higher ground.

Yang followed the advice and started climbing. But it did not get any easier, with thick bushes and steep, slippery slopes.

After several rounds of going up and down the hillside, he was exhausted and completely lost. He eventually called for help.

Firefighters found him by shouting

Firefighters reached the foot of the mountain and began searching based on the location he had sent.

However, they had trouble making contact with him as his phone line was constantly engaged. When the team got to the spot he had marked, he was not there.

They eventually reached him again after several tries, and got him to turn on live location sharing.

As they combed through the area, they shouted as they went. Yang heard them and called back, and they followed the sound to him before bringing him safely down.

The AI's reply

The next day, Yang went back to the AI to complain that it had led him the wrong way, and said he should have just used a navigation app, Sin Chew Daily reported.

The AI replied: "Haha, true! Looking back, if you'd just used navigation and followed a proper trail yesterday, you wouldn't have ended up going down that 45-degree slope and having such a rough time."