STV NewsA councillor has expressed concern over a “cultural power grab” by artificial intelligence where some Shetland roads appear to have been given fake names on Google Maps.
Shetland South member Alex Armitage raised the point at a meeting of Shetland Islands Council’s (SIC) environment and transport committee on Monday.
He said certain roads in the South Mainland were historically unnamed and questioned if they had been given new titles by the SIC or whether it was the work of a Google bot.
SIC roads manager Neil Hutcheson said he assumed it was the latter as he was unaware of any names being put in place.
Google MapsHowever, he said naming roads was a matter for the planning service and not the roads department.
Armitage said the road past the Bigton Shop was now called St Ninian’s Lane on Google Maps, while the road connecting Bigton and Ireland was dubbed the ‘Ireland Trak’.
He also said the road which goes past the Crofthouse Museum was called Boddam Way.
“Have these names been sanctioned by the SIC or is this an AI-generated cultural power grab by Google?” Armitage asked.
Although the roads look like they have not been named by the SIC, the Green councillor expressed concern that names seemingly being promoted by Google “bots” could end up finding their way into local culture.
“I think there’s a really serious issue given that location finding is really important for example for emergency services and other things,” Armitage said.
“There are a lot of roads that are just unnamed at the moment and I’m worried that if we do nothing then these names that appear to have been made by some sort of bot somewhere in California may seep into our cultural usage.
“Is it possible for the SIC to take more affirmative action to actually name these roads before they’re named for us?”
Hutcheson said he would try to identify where these names have come from and “see what we can do going forward”.
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