Who does a better job of planning the ideal road trip – human intelligence or Artificial Intelligence?

It’s a question that was posed by CarMax in the USA and the answer might well surprise you.

CarMax started by surveying over 1,000 people to discover what they think makes the perfect road trip. Of those questioned more than 80 per cent said they would be taking to the road on 2021 so the data source seems sound. Almost half of respondents said summer was the best time for a road trip and the average length of the drive was 566 miles. Armed with this information (and much more) an AI system known as Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) set to work planning eight different types of trip.

GPT-3 planned routes for couples, cross country and coastal roads, trips for food fans, for the summer, for scenery and seeing national monuments. A follow-up survey then asked respondents to pick between the AI designed trips and similar experiences in travel publications.

The AI won out with five out of the eight trips it designed being picked. You can find all the details at CarMax but we still reckon that no amount of data crunching can beat the personal experience, which is why all the road trips on Detour come from real people who’ve done real drives.

If you’d like some help planning your next trip then check out Charlotte Vowden’s very comprehensive guide.