The irony – it’s Read a Road Map day. Not ‘Blindly stick an address into a car’s satnav system and follow turn directions’ or ‘Use Google maps’. This is a day to celebrate maps. You know, maps on paper, in road atlases’ the sort of product that not only invited curiosity for the places you were to visit, but also the places along the journey. Satnav killed all that. It also killed the requirement for people to be able to read a map, even in a basic sense.

So i thought I’d see if AI can create some form of generic road map and show how it might be used as an educational tool. I chose an imaginary place largely because AI still hallucinates placename spelling. If the places are imaginary then the way they are spelt is the way they are spelt. That said, there’s still a few hallucinations in what follows.

Anyway, it’s passable, but only on the correct side, at the right speed. The irony? 100% AI created without any paper or real roads to generate the look of a paper product, using a computer. Meta.

Original Prompt (Google Gemini)

I need a map that could be used to promote “Read a Road Map” day. The map itself must look like a road map and contain all of the typical features you’d expect in a road atlas. Crucially it needs to direct people in how to read the map so it should be educational.