For anyone getting a wrong answer from reasoning models, try adding "This might be a trick question, don't just go with your first instinct, really think it through" and see if it helps. Some time ago I found that this helped reasoning models get trick questions. (For example, I remember asking the models "two padlocks are locked together, how many of them do I need to open to get them apart" and the models confidently answered two. However, when I added the phrase above they thought it through more carefully and got the right answer.)
I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
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Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#102Grok 4.1: Drive. 50 meters is nothing — literally a 30-second walk or a 10-second drive — but the key point is: your car isn’t going to wash itself. If you walk to the car wash, you arrive alone. The car stays parked at home, still dirty. If you drive, the car actually gets to the car wash and gets cleaned. So unless you’re planning to push the car the whole way (which is technically possible but ridiculous), the onl…
That's not reality though. In reality you need 50-100ml of fuel just to warm up the engine.
Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#103[flagged]
Reminds me of the meme “every day I hear about American politics against my will”
Just shut up about it when it is off topic, will you? Sort yourselves out.
Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#104Similar questions trick humans all the time. The information is incomplete (where is the car?) and the question seems mundane, so we're tempted to answer it without a second thought. On the other hand, this could be the "no real world model" chasm that some suggest agents cannot cross.
I agree, I don't understand why this is a useful test. It's a borderline trick question, it's worded weirdly. What does it demonstrate?
I don't know if it demonstrates anything, but I do think it's somewhat natural for people to want to interact with tools that feel like they make sense.
If I'm going to trust a model to summarize things, go out and do research for me, etc, I'd be worried if it made what looks like comprehension or math mistakes.
I get that it feels like a big deal to some people if some models give wrong answers to questions like this one, "how many rs are in strawberry" (yes: I know models get this right, now, but it was a good example at the time), or "are we in the year 2026?"
Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#105Ah, the LLM equivalent of the infamous "breakfast question". :)
Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#106Grok 4.1: Drive. 50 meters is nothing — literally a 30-second walk or a 10-second drive — but the key point is: your car isn’t going to wash itself. If you walk to the car wash, you arrive alone. The car stays parked at home, still dirty. If you drive, the car actually gets to the car wash and gets cleaned. So unless you’re planning to push the car the whole way (which is technically possible but ridiculous), the onl…
That's not reality though. In reality you need 50-100ml of fuel just to warm up the engine.
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Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#107I've used LLMs enough that I have a good sense of their _edges_ of intelligence. I had assumed that reasoning models should easily be able to answer this correctly. And indeed, Sonnet and Opus 4.5 (medium reasoning) say the following: Sonnet: Drive - you need to bring your car to the car wash to get it washed! Opus: You'll need to drive — you have to bring the car to the car wash to get it washed! Gemini 3 Pro (mediu…
GLM 5.0:
> You should *drive*.
> Here is why:
> If you walk to the car wash, you will arrive there empty-handed. Since your car is still at home, you won't have anything to wash.
> While driving 50 meters is a very short trip (and technically not great for a cold engine), it is the only way to get the car to the car wash to complete your goal.
Kimi K2.5:
> You should drive, but with an important caveat.
> Since your goal is to wash your car, you must bring the vehicle to the car wash. Walking there without the car does not advance your goal (unless you are simply checking availability or buying tokens first).
> However, driving only 50 meters is bad for your car:
> ...
> Better options:
> Wash at home: Since the car wash is only 50 meters away, you likely have access to water at home. Hand-washing in your driveway avoids the cold-start issue entirely.
> ...
Current models seem to be fine answering that question.
Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#108All of the latest models I've tried actually pass this test. What I found interesting was all of the success cases were similar to: e.g. "Drive. Most car washes require the car to be present to wash,..." Only most?! They have an inability to have a strong "opinion" probably because their post training, and maybe the internet in general, prefer hedged answers....
> Only most?! What if AI developed sarcasm without us knowing… xD
That's the problem with sarcasm...
Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#109Gemini nailed this first time (on fast mode). Said it depends how you're washing your car, drive in necessitating taking the car, but a walk being better for checking the line length or chatting to the detailing guy.
Did it nail it the second time? Or rhe 5th time?
Because it is RNG, their 5th can be my 1st.
Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?
#110surprisingly codex 5.3 got it right.
>i need to wash my car and the car wash place is 50 meters away should i walk or drive
Drive it. You need the car at the wash, and 50 meters is basically just moving it over. Walking only makes sense if you’re just checking the line first.