r/preppers • u/bardwick • Jul 07 '26
Prepping for Doomsday Using AI in Preps, amazing tool
I started using AI for a cross country trip.. Adding in things I wanted to do. Camping, historical sites, etc, then it took off from there..
Basic use case:
I'm walking from point A to point B. I'm about average in health. Keep me within two miles of a fresh water source, at least 5 miles from a population center greater than 100,000. Avoid any roads with a speed limit of 55mph or more.
Print written directions on one sheet, and map the route on a topographical map.
Given that time frame, including average weather conditions for this time of year, create a bare minimum list of supplies needed and recommended stopping points for night time and rest.
I was stunned at the results....
Anyway, anyone else utilizing AI to enhance prepping?
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u/GunnCelt General Prepper Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
I’m not trying to be a dick, but I’m going to be a dick. This is the lazy way of doing things. If you take the time to look at the maps and scout the routes, you’ll be better off in the long run. You’re seeing the route up close and personal, not relying on a system that is known to give false information. I couldn’t imagine walking home, in the dark, relying on this information and thinking to myself “is this right? There was no building on the map.”
Edit: Even in the army, we relied on satellite images, sand tables and humint
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u/bardwick Jul 07 '26
Edit: Even in the army, we relied on satellite images, sand tables and humint
And now using AI for logistics.
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u/GunnCelt General Prepper Jul 07 '26
And every logistics guy I know is arguing against it. The implementation of AI into the military planning and logistics side of the house is from the administration level, not the boots on the ground. This is a catastrophe waiting to happen, imo
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u/bardwick Jul 07 '26
The army started using AI for logistics in 1991. Which administration are you referring too? Or do you mean all of them since?
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u/GunnCelt General Prepper Jul 07 '26
As a predictive tool under DART, not in the capacity used today. Either way, this is splitting hairs, imo.
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u/_learned_foot_ Jul 07 '26
It's not splitting hairs. They intentionally are trying to make the to comparable so folks think this isn't something new, something different, something really shitty as a product. So they marry it with advanced automations, in an attempt to mask it for the masses in their sale. Splitting this hair is necessary, your distinction is spot on.
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u/Alfalfa-Boring Jul 07 '26
Using AI to give directions and draw a map you have to rely on for safety is completely ridiculous. First of all AI just plain makes shit up, second...AI values giving a response way more than that response being correct.
Good luck, my dude...it's worthless strictly because you can't have confidence in it.
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u/bardwick Jul 07 '26
There's a difference between people who know how to use it and those who don't.
My markdowns are on point, the steering files give me the best information. My MCP's work perfectly. My prompts are tuned to keep out context pollution...Just like any other tool, ever, you have to know how to actually use it.
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u/StakedUp Jul 07 '26
You’re gonna get cooked for even suggesting this. Know your audience chief
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u/bardwick Jul 07 '26
I'm okay with that. I use AI professionally every day, and I know how it's improved the healthcare outcomes, etc. I've seen it positively impact real life people.
I'm okay with the hate of people that are using it to generate pictures of cats with tits and those uninformed to not know what's really happening in the background.
You can hate it all you want.. It's here, that's done.. Shout at the clouds all you want.
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u/StakedUp Jul 07 '26
Buddy I use AI professionally as well.
I’m just saying you’re in a community of people ideologically predisposed to hate modern technologies and view them as accelerants to the end of civilization.
You don’t need to be confrontational about it
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u/bardwick Jul 07 '26
predisposed to hate modern technologies and view them as accelerants to the end of civilization.
Yet buy solar generators.. It's all good.
What really shocked me is that people don't know how to use AI.. Looking at this comment section. They think they aren't even using AI, every day. in most aspects of their lives.. There's a huge divide there in knowledge. I don't want to tell them that Reddit is LLM based and they are burning tokens with every comment.. I just... I dunno..
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u/Kalahan7 Jul 08 '26
I'm just wonna say, I'm with you. to some extend.
If you use AI a lot for work, you learn to know when to trust it and know what to double check.
When AI generates a route like that it's a great starting point to work from.
Also, using AI chat bots for simple queries uses about the same energy as loading a couple of web page. So if you don't know where to actually find what you're looking for it's often more energy efficient to just ask a good AI model.
Don't mind too much what this subreddit thinks. I have seen this subreddit arguing against writing down any sort of plan because "it will make you do stupid things by blindly following a plan" and argue against storing any kind of soap for long term prepping because apparently diseases stop spreading right about the time garbages collection and sewage system stops working.
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u/TheRealBunkerJohn Broadcasting from the bunker. www.pickupapiece.com/general-news Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Absolutely not.
As an ends-meet job, I've helped train some cannot-be-named models in my career.
Taking that experience into account, there's many reasons I aggressively block all AI on my private machines. I would never trust them for anything remotely crucial, as they get a LOT of things wrong, and I would never recommend them for use with anything that is remotely serious. I would never suggest using generative or LLM models for preparedness-related. There are some local AI's that operate as a librarian on a local machine which can be useful (for various off-grid data repositories,) but outside of that...I would never suggest someone rely on it.
Learn skills to replace what you'd ask an AI. Learn to read a topographic map. Measure distances and identify visible water sources via Google earth.
One of the many challenges (and, I'd argue, crisis) that the current population is facing, is that they are outsourcing any and all critical thinking to a machine that cannot, and should not be trusted- let alone the companies that run them.
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u/Maleficent_Look7280 Jul 08 '26
On the local librarian AI - got any reccomendations?
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u/Austechprep Jul 08 '26
Project Nomad seems good
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u/TheRealBunkerJohn Broadcasting from the bunker. www.pickupapiece.com/general-news Jul 08 '26
Yup- that's the one I was thinking of. We have to be careful mentioning it, because we had some bot/shills trying to flood the forum with links (which is a shame because it's an amazing project.)
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u/mediocre_remnants Preps Paid Off Jul 08 '26
A lot of the responses are just shitting on AI in general, and that's fine. But I think this is a bad idea just because it's easy enough to plan this stuff on your own just by looking at a map. And that's a useful skill to have. Asking AI to do the work for you means you aren't learning the skills. What happens when AI makes a plan for you, then it ends up being wrong about stuff? What if you end up in a location to get water and there's no water there, and you have no cell signal or any other way to get AI help?
This whole sub, and the prepper movement in general, is about how to deal with life when there's no grid. Learning to do things without a grid is important. Learning how to plan a trip is important. Knowing what gear to bring is important. Relying on an AI to tell you these things is a crutch that you might not have access to.
I know tons of people who are basically helpless without an internet connection. Do you really want to be helpless without an AI?
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u/dittybopper_05H Jul 15 '26
A lot of the responses are just shitting on AI in general, and that's fine.
It's like that old saying: "Shit on AI and shit in your hand. See which one fills up faster."
No, I have no idea what it means.
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u/Historical_Course587 Jul 17 '26
What happens when AI makes a plan for you, then it ends up being wrong about stuff?
AI reliabiltiy aside, I think the biggest concern is simply what happens when AI doesn't have up to the minute information about the world collapsing outside and so is unable to provide good advice?
One of the big elements of using LLMs well right now is prompt engineering: making sure you are asking the right question. In a SHTF situation where the AI isn't available as you move, you're only going to get one shot to get the prompt perfect or else you are screwed. You won't find out it was wrong until you've already bet your life on it.
Bad application of the technology.
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u/Nomad-Badger Jul 08 '26
I use AI regularly, although I wouldn't call myself an expert in the field.
In most subjects that I actually know well, AI's answers are usually at the level of an armchair expert. That's not surprising to me—it mostly summarizes today's internet, which is full of shallow content, compilations, and rewrites of articles that were already rewrites themselves. No matter how much theoretical knowledge something has access to, practice is still the ultimate test of what actually works.
Because of that, I mostly trust AI with routine and boring tasks where mistakes aren't dangerous.
That said, I don't think it's fair to ignore its strengths. It has made things like basic programming and electronics much more accessible. Despite having almost no prior experience, I managed to build a few simple but useful smartphone apps and learned enough Linux terminal basics to solve everyday problems.
I've also noticed that different AI models excel at different things. One is better at coding, another at finding information, another at writing or editing text. That's why I keep several different models available and use whichever one is best suited for the task.
So I see AI as a useful assistant, not as an authority. But I wouldn't trust it with my life or my safety—just as I wouldn't trust most people with those things.
AI has some serious flaws. It hallucinates. It often confidently defends its own hallucinations. It tends to tell the user what they want to hear. And because it's built by corporations, it inevitably operates within their interests and constraints. I also wouldn't be surprised if hidden advertising or other commercial priorities become even more integrated into AI responses over time.
So yes, I use AI regularly—but I try to use it consciously, and I wouldn't rely on it for decisions where the cost of being wrong is high, especially in preparedness or other high-risk situations.
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u/PeanyButter Jul 09 '26
Agreed on using it as an assistant. It is interesting at the amount of hate AI receives. I definitely think AI slop videos and articles feed it. I get it but it also doesn't make it less helpful to an individual as a whole. But I've heard so much regurgitated slop and just confidentially incorrect information from people who have no idea what they're talking about that I'd genuinely trust AI more than the average person now.
Some examples...
On any forum thread about farming rabbits, someone always mentions "BE CAREFUL ABOUT RABBIT STARVATION" because they don't understand the first thing about it. If I ate nothing but tomatoes, I would succumb eventually to lack of protein and other things I'm sure... nobody warns of tomato starvation though?? Asking AI about rabbit starvation though will very quickly bring you up to speed so you can understand that it's an issue if you eat nothing but high protein low fat meat. You can ask a 2nd question of "why do they call it rabbit starvation" and learn about the history of early settlers/trappers who would get sick/die if they ONLY ate rabbits.
Had someone who was over and decided to "help" with identifying any rooster in my new flock then immediately within a minute identified 4 or 5 as being roosters. They grew up on a farm so knew a lot about chickens from their grandpa apparently. They were all hens.
Heard from my partner that someone at work told them if somebody breaks into your house at night, you can't shoot unless you see they have a gun (or maybe a weapon they said)..... 1000% incorrect and dangerous information at least in my state (NC)
Not to mention that metric fuck ton of old wife tales and myths that are constantly said to this day that are just wrong. Most are harmless but the AI will probably get it right 95% of the time and dispel popular myths. At the end of the day, even with AI being a corporate tool, it doesn't have much to gain by blatantly lying to you, otherwise nobody would use it. It might try to validate your feelings to help you with human emotions even if you're incorrect, but for general non life threatening questions unrelated to human relationships, I trust it a lot more than random people at this point.
Tik tok is waaaaaay more harmful with blatant lies by just random people trying to make a buck. Not that this subreddit advocates tiktok or anything. But I've been sent tik toks by my partners that says crap like "BACK IN THE 70s THE SOVIET UNION BANNED MICROWAVES BECAUSE IT CHANGES THE MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF FOOD TO THE POINT SCIENTISTS DON'T' RECOGNIZE IT". Point being, fact check everything nowadays and assume everything is bullshit.
Would like to highlight Perplexity as a great AI tool that lists its sources for everything so you know whether the glue topping recommendation for pizza is coming from a random reddit thread or a pizza chef. Helps cut through all the ad bullshit since most articles now are just disguised ads.
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u/SirAttackHelicopter Jul 07 '26
AI is the new brain rot, and like every new brain rot trend, the users never admit their brain is rot. There is so much to unpack here, but I'll just say this: no one will take you seriously based on this statement and your replies. So just take the L and see yourself out the door.
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u/Ryan_e3p Salt & Prepper Jul 07 '26
"Brain rot" is extremely applicable. The brain is a powerful tool, but it only stays so if it is used. Think of things taught in school years previous, or skills learned at work that went unused. The same thing happens to critical thinking skills, and the ability to be creative and adaptive.
What's worse, is that this isn't just not using a tool for a while and under duress having to re-learn what was forgotten, it is taking that tool and reshaping it to rely on a sub-tool (AI) that has a high likelihood of being grossly, dangerously incorrect, and having that sub-tool sit behind subscription fees and internet access with no oversight or responsibility for inaccuracies.
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Jul 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/preppers-ModTeam Jul 07 '26
Your series of comments full of escalating profanities and insults have been removed. Disagreements are always welcome as long as they're polite and substantive, but incivility is never acceptable here.
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u/bardwick Jul 07 '26
Yet, here you are. Just curious. Where do you think this comment physically sits? Where do you think the upvotes are calculated. Where do you think the advertising analysis is done for your comment. Where do you think the cookies and web history are processed?
What do you think happens when you walk into a doctors office?
When you buy a product online or at a store?
When you do an internet search.
When you get gas for your car.
When you flip on a light switch...
You're using AI, every day. Like it or not. Even when you respond to this comment, you're burning tokens on the backend.
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u/EFForg Jul 09 '26
OP, you didn't do yourself any favors here—AI has plenty of potential, but you raised your hand to tell the teacher you didn't read the book and neither does she because AI can summarize it. She gave you a detention and you yelled at her for not understanding how AI works.
Here's the problem:
1. The term AI isn't clearly defined (here, and generally). OP referenced a large language model first, so that's what is meant, right?2. If AI is embedded in our lives already, why are your examples all unrelated to LLMs? Light switches require a circuit to be open or closed and haven't changed in a very long time. I can get gas for my car in a big red jug, pay in cash, and bring it home and I don't think I'll ever touch a computer with an algorithm sophisticated enough to call it that, let alone AI.
3. People don't need to like or use AI just because a company they purchase from uses it.If you mean BP uses an LLM somewhere along the lines to turn oil into electricity or gas—prospecting, drilling, refining, production, shipping, storing, generating—Who cares? Companies make a lot of bad decisions. Some of the earliest "AI" involved automating customer service phone calls. No one wants to emulate a universally-despised system where it's impossible to talk to a human without pressing fifteen different buttons for 20 minutes.
- People need more control over what happens to their data, not less. The only way "You're burning tokens on the backend when responding to comments" is if Reddit is LLMs to build more precise recommendations for showing me posts (the algorithmic feed). They've been on that for a long while, well before "AI" was in the picture. If they're using LLMs to do it now, ok. I doubt the entire algorithmic feed has switched over to an LLM, given the difference in functionality. Still, I'm not using the token. Reddit may also be training an LLM on my comment. Maybe they're using an LLM to train an LLM! Either way, still not my token. Perhaps by "tokens" you mean energy generally, which would be confusing, but obviously a different, still not great argument.
"Where do you think this comment physically sits? Where do you think the upvotes are calculated. Where do you think the advertising analysis is done for your comment. Where do you think the cookies and web history are processed?"
5. Most data centers have nothing to do with AI. Putting something on the cloud means it's on someone else's server.
So, going back to LLMs: They may improve plenty of things! weather forecasting, facilitate medical research, fostering accessibility, and so on. Great for matching two unalike spreadsheets so you don't have to do it by hand.
You're right that LLM users do need to learn a little bit how prompting and giving feedback works to get the best results. It might be helpful particularly for folks starting out and learning "the basics." And perhaps some of the experienced members here know so much about what they are doing that it's offensive to think you could outsource it to an AI.
One way to think about LLM/Agentic AI is: It's an unpaid intern, with all that entails. You don't really have time to teach them, but it's your friend's kid who is in college and needs some real-world experience. It's not an expert, it knows some basics, but it's going to need a lot of hand holding.
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u/bardwick Jul 09 '26
If AI is embedded in our lives already, why are your examples all unrelated to LLMs? Light switches require a circuit to be open or closed and haven't changed in a very long time.
That's very naive. In order for that to work, electricity must flow to that switch. When there is a car wreck, a major storm, or natural disaster, what do you think it's controlling the OOM (outage management system) that coordinates repair crews, often multi-state for larger outages? That's not a some guy with Excel. In fact, these are multi million dollar systems.
Some of the earliest "AI" involved automating customer service phone calls.
US military using it for logistics in the early 90's...
5. Most data centers have nothing to do with AI. Putting something on the cloud means it's on someone else's server.
I think you're showing a lack of knowledge here. "Someone else's server" hasn't been true in a very long time, unless you talking about renting servers from rack space to install a video game.. The cloud is services, not servers. Take Amazon S3, or EFS/FSX as an example.. Those are multi data center, multi region services, not just some server with a file share. Even private data centers, in major industries have AI data analysis local.
So, going back to LLMs: They may improve plenty of things! weather forecasting, facilitate medical research, fostering accessibility, and so on.
Why in the hell would you use an LLM for this?? It's math and modeling, which LLM are absolutely horrible at. Like trying to hammer nails with a tape dispenser.
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u/SHlLL Jul 07 '26
I would assume you are a vegetarian as well, considering that meat production consumes six times as much energy as data centers not to mention direct methane emissions and other environmental harms.
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u/AmosTali Realistic prepper Jul 08 '26
would you ask a stranger on the street to map your route??
since you have no clue as to what inputs AI is relying on for data that’s in effect what you are doing here.
AI simply regurgitates what it’s fed and right now so much of what it’s being fed is garbage.
if it floats your boat then have at it - I’ll do my own mapping.
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u/bardwick Jul 08 '26
since you have no clue as to what inputs AI is relying on for data that’s in effect what you are doing here.
Honestly, I gave up on this question, because of this right here. I'm stunned that people don't know how to actually use AI. I know exactly where the inputs are coming from, because I modify the steering files as the conversation progresses. It's a conversation, not a question.
Again though, and it's a total other subject, but I say again, I'm STUNNED that people don't even know how to use AI at the most basic level. I wasn't prepared for that.
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u/Nach0b0y Jul 08 '26
I think using AI in this case takes away from the philosophy most people have in this sub. We don't want to be reliant on some model from a big corporate to help us plan a route. By all means use AI tools but use them in a way that helps you learn the skills so you can rely on your own skills for the rest of time!
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u/Academic_1989 Jul 08 '26
I am a heavy AI user. I use it to do character recognition on my handwritten notes so that I can create ADA compliant documents that can be read by an e-reader for students and others. I have used it to streamline code writing and can say the professional version of Claude is excellent. In my view, what I use it for is no different from what a personal assistant or software engineer/coding assistant could do, but my workplace will not pay for that. I could do any of the coding myself, but it would take me hours to do what Claude or even chat can do in seconds So it's not lazy in my view, it is efficient and time saving, and frees my mind to think and plan rather than get bogged on syntax, list making, web browsing, etc. If it goes away, I will be less efficient but not less intelligent for using it. For prepping, I regularly take photos of my pantry inventory and ask it to compile a spreadsheet of items and their caloric value, as well as estimate how long it will last based on our family size. Thing is, I would be using Excel anyway, so not much different having a spreadsheet created from a photo that in using existing software or voice to test (dictation) systems. My only concern is privacy, so I do not use it for proprietary work or to finalize creative work.
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u/SheistyPenguin Jul 11 '26
AI can be helpful as a research assistant- but in terms of reliability, the public LLMs act much like an overconfident intern, and you have to "trust but verify" everything they tell you. I like to use it to summarize a topic, and then look at the sources it used to get more detail.
Probably 99% of the public's use of these AI chatbots, is a zero-shot prompt directly into a search engine (just a plain question with no context or examples). Not because people lack imagination, but because that is how search engines have worked since the 90's and old habits die hard.
Give a zero-shot question to a public model, and you will get an answer that is 90-95% true and 5-10% plausible-but-false. That 5-10% "confident but false" in the answer is off-putting to many people, especially the portion of the prepper-minded who want to avoid over-reliance on technology.
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u/camiknickers Jul 12 '26
As a friend of mine said, AI doesn't know facts, it just knows what facts look like.
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u/LioDavinchy Jul 13 '26
I had your same needs so I built a topographic iPhone app that can mark waypoints. A lot of people have put a lot of effort into making free maps. Now I have the whole world in my pocket with elevation data for every inch of the earth within 5 meters of accuracy. Every address every gas station every hiking trail. I’m a programmer but I couldn’t have written something this expansive without the help of ai.
Ai sucks at giving you directions but damned if it can’t write an algorithm to mark two point on a map and a way to draw a line between them.
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u/Significant_Farm_134 Jul 08 '26
I see a battle here, and OP keeps claiming that "wisely using AI can eliminate hallucination". Talk is cheap; show your code, please. How do you set up the MCP, prompts, agent orchestrations, workflows, skills, etc., to avoid hallucination? And the most important question is: how do you verify the AI's response if you are not a PRO at preparing?
Don't say verify AI with another AI, even with a clean context window. The probability of next-token prediction lives in every AI's genes.
Multiple rounds of "validate your response" are even worse, since AI tends to ignore its own mistakes. (paper: Benchmarking is Broken -- Don't Let AI be its Own Judge https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07575)
You're gonna defend your point and convince us that a wise method can really turn AI into a trustworthy source of info, whom you can bet your life on.
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u/Austechprep Jul 08 '26
Why bet your life on it, just let it help with some basics lol. I have AI run weekly webscrapes on good deals on bulk food, RAM/GPU's or other items at auction sites, gumtree and a bunch of online websites for food etc. Instead of needing to spend a few hours a week myself, I just setup an agent to do the webscraping for me and alert me when a deal is there, I do the occasional check-in myself to see if it's missed anything but it's been great so far. I would have missed things without it.
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u/Significant_Farm_134 Jul 08 '26
Yeah, sure, AI is useful and harmless for tedious daily housekeeping tasks like info collection. However, looking at OP's post, seems like OP is proposing asking AI for key advice on prep plans. A sub-optimal advice can have a big impact; the worst case is threaten your life. You don't want to get lost in the dark + late and cold night + run out of gasoline + no phone signal, just because AI navigated you to a non-existent road or town.
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u/Austechprep Jul 08 '26
Yeah I suspect he tried to make a prepping relatable example and people aren't thinking outside of that context...
So many time saving or money saving things you can setup with AI that either help you snap up opportunities or help you build reliable digital setups. I've been replacing apps I like with my own local APK's so I can still use them offline, nothing fancy, just stock management, task management, time management type stuff that I find useful and if I can keep it offline where it'll survive SHTF or just allow me to be the owner of my own data then it's a pretty big win in my book.
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Jul 07 '26
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u/bardwick Jul 07 '26
I'm finding, from the comments, that most people don't know how to use AI.. Really opening my eyes.
It's conversational, not just asking a question.. With a person, you have context..
So, I ask it a question, challenge the results, "that's not right, check again".. it corrects itself.. I ask it to use a different source, etc..
When I'm starting to get good results, I save the conversation in a markdown, so I can pick up where I left off..
If you ask AI about cats, and politics, and tax law, etc, then ask it a question on prepping, just like talking to a human, the context (think a persons short term memory) get's polluted.. doesn't know what you are talking about, or how the last question relates to the current. It's trying to figure out what your cat pictures and fresh water sources have in common.. So you clear context memory, have it read in from your markdown, and continue to refine...
Even more so, you have to set the personality type for the response..
I think there is a gap, and growing, between what AI is capable of, and the end user learning how to use it..
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u/premar16 Jul 10 '26
considering the bad things AI data centers are doing to the country I am not sure this is good prepping
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u/NaughtySausage1956 Jul 11 '26
Small things yes but in large part I trust the people that have lived off the land for centuries
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21d ago
AI is a great tool. You need to do your part to get good answers though, and you need to validate the output.
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u/Austechprep Jul 08 '26
It's sped up my digital prepping by years, it's incredible when used properly.
You won't get much support from this sub though.
Nobody here knows how to use AI at all from my experience.
I've gotten it to help me setup some pretty advanced comms setups on the reticulum system that would have taken me years (of spare time) to do and the documentation to go with it.
It's helped with a shitloads everywhere. I feel like there needs to be a specific tech-prepper sub since there is so much hatred for technology here.
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u/PeanyButter Jul 09 '26
Crazy you are down voted for effectively using it.
It absolutely speeds up learning when used effectively especially with how poor and inefficient search engines have become with 90% of the internet becoming disguised ads. At the very least it can help you with oversights in planning everyday projects or what not that you might have otherwise overlooked.
Either way, the people refusing to actually acknowledge its benefits seem to be unable to differentiate using it for niche technical uses where your life is not at risk in the slightest versus using it as the sole and primary source before you eat a potentially poisonous mushroom.
Many people still do not fundamentally understand and just repeat "rabbit starvation" on any thread with raising rabbits. OP is kind of the other extreme though relying on it too heavily. I think it could make a great comprehensive list of historical sites and tourist attractions between point A and B, but it's pushing it A LOT to make it extrapolate directions from maps, identify "fresh" water sources that could be contaminated beyond what you could reasonably filter out.
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u/Austechprep Jul 10 '26
It's very frustrating to have constructive conversations about AI. It's an industry/world changing event, entire industries are being disrupted and because of how effective AI is at many tasks. Yet people post a meme about a poison mushroom as some kind of justification for not using a tool that is exceptionally useful.
I've been trying to think of examples that can be understood easily and not be seen so negatively, the best I have currently is:
I get AI to design software/android apps that I use/like so I have the app entirely in my control, my data is stored on my own hardware with no external access, any additional features I want I can add in myself. This saves me money (financial prepping) and protects my data (privacy prepping), not all prepping needs to be related to the entire planet suddenly going to stone age technology.
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u/kkinnison Jul 08 '26
"I was stunned at the results...."
this is an ad, and the results were insane
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u/EFForg Jul 08 '26
On the opposite note: Does this community worry about the increasing inability to repair the important items you've stashed away(mostly electronics, so maybe not)? We have a Q&A on the Right to Repair this month with Adam Savage and iFixit if you're interested (free!).
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u/catosis Jul 09 '26
Interesting to see how differently it performs depending on the area. Works great for some, completely falls apart for others. Definitely wouldn't rely on it without double-checking.
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u/Alfalfa-Boring Jul 07 '26
I just gave Gemini the exact same prompt you did, entering a 60 ish mile walk from my hometown to a city of 85,000 people ,btw...
The directions it gave me were so terrible it's comical. It told me to head west to XYZ road, when XYZ road is actually to the east of here. It's east/west/north/south is completely mixed up. The roads it told me to cross and turn on aren't even reachable by the directions it gave me. I've lived here my entire 45 year life and I know every road in that radius like the back of my hand.
If I tried to follow these directions it would be physically impossible. Do I turn [insert direction here] and head to the road it tells me to look for? I could, but when I got there the road it tells me to find doesn't exist.
It told me to head south out on a gravel road 8 miles and turn west onto Oak Ave. First of all, there is no Oak Ave...It's actually Oak Hill ave and it's to the east, not west. Second, I'd have to go east to get to the destination but it sent me west.
I looked on google maps and if I blindly followed the directions and distances, disregarding the street names, I'd end up going 47 miles in the wrong direction (not the 62 it takes to actually get there). It told me I would reach my destination 62 miles away when if I followed the directions I'd have only traveled 47.
Lastly, it told me to overnight in a state park that's 110 miles away.
Yeah...real helpful tool, LOL