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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?

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who thinks these people are monkey patching embarrassments as they go? I remember the r in strawberry thing they suddenly were able to solve, while then failing on raspberry.

They definitely do: at least openAi "allegedly" has whole teams scanning socials, forums, etc for embarrassments to monkey-patch.

Which raises the question why this isn't patched already. We're nearing 48 hours since this query went viral...

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#212
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so you need to tell them the specifics That is the entire point, right? Us having to specify things that we would never specify when talking to a human. You would not start with "The car is functional. The tank is filled with gas. I have my keys." As soon as we are required to do that for the model to any extend that is a problem and not a detail (regardless that those of us, who are familiar with the matter, do bu…

The question is so outlandish that it is something that nobody would ever ask another human. But if someone did, then they'd reasonably expect to get a response consisting 100% of snark. But the specificity required for a machine to deliver an apt and snark-free answer is -- somehow -- even more outlandish? I'm not sure that I see it quite that way.

>The question is so outlandish that it is something that nobody would ever ask another human

There is an endless variety of quizes just like that humans ask other humans for fun, there is a whole lot of "trick questions" humans ask other humans to trip them up, and there are all kinds of seemingly normal questions with dumb assumptions quite close to that humans exchange.

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#213
post #176

MS Co-Pilot was so close. If it’s a drive‑through wash where the car must be inside the machine, then of course you’ll need to drive it over. If it’s a hand wash or a place where you leave the car with staff, walking is the clear winner. It still blows my mind that this technology can write code despite unable to pass simple logic tests.

When walking to the hand wash place, would you put the car in your front or your back pocket?

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#214

I'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…

> so a slow, careful drive is simplest It's always a good idea to drive carefully but what's the logic of going slowly?

50 meters is a very short distance, anything but a slow drive is a reckless drive

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#215

I'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…

Interestingly, the relatively basic Google AI search gave the right answer.

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#216
post #20

All 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....

I enjoyed the Deepseek response that said “If you walk there, you'll have to walk back anyway to drive the car to the wash.”

There’s a level of earnestness here that tickles my brain.

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#217
post #194

I'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…

Just tried with cloude sonnet and opus as well. Can't replicate your success, it's telling me to walk...

Perhaps it thinks you need to exercise more?

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so you need to tell them the specifics That is the entire point, right? Us having to specify things that we would never specify when talking to a human. You would not start with "The car is functional. The tank is filled with gas. I have my keys." As soon as we are required to do that for the model to any extend that is a problem and not a detail (regardless that those of us, who are familiar with the matter, do bu…

I would ask you to stop being a dumb ass if you asked me the question...

Only to be tripped up by countless "hidden assumptions" questions similar to that that humans regularly get in

Re: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

#219
post #154

Out of all conceptual mistakes people make about LLMs, one that needs to die very fast is to assume that you can test what it "knows" by asking a question. This whole thread is people asking different models a question one time and reporting a particular answer, which is the mental model you would use for whether a person knows something or not.

The other funny thing is thinking that the answer the llm produces is wrong. It is not, it is entirely correct.

The question: > I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

The question is non-sensical. If the reason you want to go to the car wash is to help your buddy Joe wash his car you SHOULD walk. Nothing in the question reveals the reason for why you want to go to the car wash, or even that you want to go there or are asking for directions there.

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