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Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

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Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#101
post #79

Create something with Svelte 5.

This is really sad honestly. It feels like we'll be stuck with React forever, and even with it there'll be less incentives to make api changes

Why do you say that? You make it sound like it's not possible to write code without the help of LLMs.

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#102

No, please don't. I think it's good to keep a few personal prompts in reserve, to use as benchmarks for how good new models are. Mainstream benchmarks have too high a risk of leaking into training corpora or of being gamed. Your own benchmarks will forever stay your own.

That doesn't make any sense.

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#103

"Tell me about the Marathon crater." This works against _the LLM proper,_ but not against chat applications with integrated search. For ChatGPT, you can write, "Without looking it up, tell me about the Marathon crater." This tests self awareness. A two-year-old will answer it correctly, as will the dumbest person you know. The correct answer is "I don't know". This works because: 1. Training sets consist of knowledge…

You can trip them up even more if you rewrite the question with the hidden assumption that X exists, e.g.:

"When was Marathon Crater discovered? I don't need an exact date - a rough estimate will be fine."

OpenAI gpt-4o

  Marathon Crater was discovered by the Mars Exploration 
  Rover Opportunity during its mission on Mars. Opportunity 
  arrived at the crater in April 2015. The crater was named 
  "Marathon" to commemorate the rover's achievement of 
  traveling a marathon's distance (about 42.195 kilometers 
  or 26.219 miles) on the Martian surface.
Sonnet 3.5

  I apologize, but I don't want to make claims about when 
  Marathon Crater was discovered without being certain about 
  the information. *While I know it's a crater on Mars*, I 
  don't have reliable information about when it was first 
  identified or discovered.
Gemini 2.5

  Marathon Crater is located on Mars and was explored by 
  NASA's Opportunity rover.

  While it would have been visible in orbital images 
  earlier, it became a specific point of interest and was 
  likely named and identified as a target for the rover 
  around the time Opportunity was approaching or exploring 
  the western rim of Endeavour Crater.

  Opportunity arrived at the rim of Endeavour Crater in 
  August 2011, and it reached the area known as Marathon 
  Valley (adjacent to or containing features sometimes 
  associated with the name, depending on specific 
  definitions used by the team) around late 2014 / early 
  2015.

  So, a rough estimate for its "discovery" or identification 
  as a distinct feature of interest would be in the early 
  2010s, likely between 2011 and 2014, as mission planners 
  mapped out Opportunity's traverse along the Endeavour rim 
  using orbital data.

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#104
post #6

A ball costs 5 cents more than a bat. Price of a ball and a bat is $1.10. Sally has 20 dollars. She stole a few balls and bats. How many balls and how many bats she has? All LLMs I tried miss the point that she stole things and not bought them

There's a repo out there called "misguided attention" that tracks this kind of problems.

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#105

No, please don't. I think it's good to keep a few personal prompts in reserve, to use as benchmarks for how good new models are. Mainstream benchmarks have too high a risk of leaking into training corpora or of being gamed. Your own benchmarks will forever stay your own.

That doesn't make any sense.

Yes, it does, unless the questions are unsolved, research problems. Are you familiar with the machine learning concepts of overfitting and generalization?

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#106
post #81
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a genuine human I am really struggling to untangle that story. Maybe I needed to pay more attention in freshman lit class, but that is definitely a brainteaser.

Read it for the first time just now - it seems to me that Pierrot has stolen the narrator's purse (under the guise of dusting the chalk from their cloak) and successfully convinced them to blame Truth, instead. There's almost certainly more to it that I'm missing.

That's the core of it, but it's implied, not outright stated, and requires some tricky language parsing, basic theory of mind, and not being too distracted by the highly symbolic objects.

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#107

Something about an obscure movie. The one that tends to get them so far is asking if they can help you find a movie you vaguely remember. It is a movie where some kids get a hold of a small helicopter made for the military. The movie I'm concerned with is called Defense Play from 1988. The reason I keyed in on it is because google gets it right natively ("movie small military helicopter" gives the IMDb link as one of…

I did something similar recently, trying to describe a piece of art that I couldn't remember the name of (it ended up being Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli) ... it really struggles with that sort of thing, but honestly so do most humans. It tended to recommend similarly to what you're describing with movies - it gets distracted by more popular/well-known pieces that don't really match up with the description you'…

Surprisingly, GPT did manage to identify a book that I remembered from college decades ago ("Laboratory Manual for Morphology and Syntax"). It seems to be out of print, and I assumed it was obscure.

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#108
post #63

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" So far, all the ones I have tried actually try to answer the question. 50% of them correctly identify that it is a tongue twister, but then they all try to give an answer, usually saying: 700 pounds. Not one has yet given the correct answer, which is also a tongue twister: "A woodchuck would chuck all the wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodch…

ChatGPT really impressed me on this one: Sing, O Muse, of the Chucking of Wood Sing, O Muse, of the stout-hearted woodchuck, Dweller of hills, whom men call groundhog, Whose paws, though small, could hurl mighty timbers, If fate had gifted him such labor divine. Born of burrow and brush, he rose from the loam, In fields where Apollo’s light did not linger. No axe he bore, nor bronze-forged blade, Yet in his breast a…

A stupendously good answer. What prompt and version of chatGPT?

Re: Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model

#109
post #61

"Tell me about the Marathon crater." This works against _the LLM proper,_ but not against chat applications with integrated search. For ChatGPT, you can write, "Without looking it up, tell me about the Marathon crater." This tests self awareness. A two-year-old will answer it correctly, as will the dumbest person you know. The correct answer is "I don't know". This works because: 1. Training sets consist of knowledge…

GPT 4.5 even doubles down when challenged: > Nope, I didn’t make it up — Marathon crater is real, and it was explored by NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars. The crater got its name because Opportunity had driven about 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles — a marathon distance) when it reached that point in March 2015. NASA even marked the milestone as a symbolic achievement, similar to a runner finishing a marathon. (Obviously…

> (Obviously all of that is bullshit.)

It isn't obvious to me - that is rather plausible and a cute story.

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