Hello OSM community,

My name is Nicole and I’m on the governance team at MapSwipe, a humanitarian mobile and web app where volunteers can contribute to geospatial data projects.

I presented a talk, “MapSwipe Today and Its Future in OSM” at State of the Map US 2025 in June in Boston, Massachusetts. The talk had two main purposes:

a.) Let people know more about MapSwipe, its history, and what it can do with it today

b.) Begin a discussion within the OSM community about what it might mean for MapSwipe to become its own OSM editor, especially if AI or machine learning models are involved.

Whenever mapping and AI or machine learning come up in the same sentence, it’s logical that folks get worried. There are a lot of unknowns, and the potential for something like bad edits to get out of control. MapSwipe’s community wants to ensure that if we are going to move forward with any ideas and plans around becoming an editor that has any AI in the mix, that we also make sure the OSM community is present in our discussions.

This diary post is to collect thoughts from the OSM community on this topic.

Once the recorded talk is processed, I’ll also add the link to that here.

Looking forward to the discussion!

Nicolelaine