The Power of Perception: Mapping a Story through Human and AI Eyes
At Random Walk, we’re always curious about the ways humans and technology interact, especially when it comes to interpreting and visualizing information. Our latest challenge was both fascinating and revealing: Can AI tools outperform humans in creating a map based on a story? We began with a passage from a book that provided a detailed description of a landscape, landmarks, and directions: At 7:35 A.M. Ishigami left his apartment as he did every weekday morning. Just before stepping out onto the street, he glanced at the mostly full bicycle lot, noting the absence of the green bicycle. Though it was already March, the wind was bitingly cold. He walked with his head down, burying his chin in his scarf. A short way to the south, about twenty yards, ran Shin-Ohashi Road. From that intersection, the road ran east into the Edogawa district, west towards Nihonbashi. Just before Nihonbashi, it crossed the Sumida River at the Shin-Ohashi Bridge. The quickest route from Ishigami’s apartment to his workplace was due south. It was only a quarter mile or so to Seicho Garden Park. He worked at the private high school just before the park. He was a teacher. He taught math. Ishigami walked south to the red light at the intersection, then he turned right, towards Shin-Ohashi Bridge. Using this description, we were tasked with manually sketching a map. It was a test of our ability to translate words into a visual representation, relying on our interpretation of the narrative. Then came the second part of the experiment: feeding the same description into AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Ideogram, and Mistral AI, asking them to generate their versions of the map.
