I let AI guide me through London for a day. Why do I keep being sent underground?

A friend had spent a cultural day curated by AI — exhibitions, places to eat and the best routes between stops — and I wanted to try the same. For my skeptic AI diary I asked ChatGPT to plan a full day out in London, to ask me a few questions first, avoid neighbourhoods I already knew, check in after each stop and breadcrumb the schedule like a treasure hunt.

I left home at 11am, genuinely intrigued. The first stop was the Postal Museum in Farringdon. Within an hour I was riding through narrow, pre-war tunnels on a tiny carriage designed to transport sacks of mail, stalactites overhead and a touch of Gringotts magic.

Next came wetlands in Walthamstow: rare birds, fishing lakes, mud on my white trainers and a line of pylons that made the air feel oddly electric. I also realised, belatedly, that I hadn’t eaten or found a bathroom because the itinerary hadn’t told me to.

chatgpt, ai guide, london, postal museum, mail carriage, farringdon, walthamstow wetlands, underground tunnels, itinerary, rare birds