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Oh man “using AI to fix potholes” is a high bar for stupidest thing I’ll hear today.
Edit: context in case you hadn’t seen it https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr05jykzkxo
@sinbad haha. I know somebody who works for a water company, building systems that generate/collate/analyse data. Creating tools for engineers to use to find water leaks. They generate whole maps and know, from pressure differences and such, exactly where every leak is and where the most water is escaping. The engineers don't use these systems though. They're not paid to fix those leaks and don't need systems to find them. It's pointless intelligence.
I imagine the pot-hole world is the same.
@dev_ric I know someone who does the same for our water system, and here they definitely do use it to find & fix leaks - it makes sense compared to potholes since you can't often see leaks. Why don't they fix the leaks there?
@sinbad long story short, the engineers get paid a bonus for each leak that's over a particular threshold. So those are the leaks they go to. And they know exactly where they are, because their fixed aren't designed to last forever. Why would you fix something for good if you're going to be paid a bonus each time you go back to fix it again?
So the big clusters of small leaks that lose tonnes of water get ignored, and the bigger individual leaks get patched up on an almost fixed rotation.
@dev_ric ugh capitalism ruining good sense again. I’m glad our water system is still publicly owned