I remember when this stuff was all coming out and people were finally excited about ChatGPT getting the problem with "which is heavier, a 10 pound bag of feathers or a 10 pound bag of bricks?" problem correct. But of course it got it correct. It was in the training set. Vary the problem slightly by just changing the nouns, or changing the numbers so that one in fact was heavier than the other, and performance went al…
Interestingly, the variation of this problem that I first encountered, personally, was "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?"
This is a much more difficult question. The answer given to me was that the pound of feathers weighs more, because gold is measured in troy weight, and a troy pound consists of only 12 ounces compared to the 16 ounces in a pound avoirdupois.
And that's all true. Gold is measured in troy weight, feathers aren't, a troy pound consists of only 12 ounces, a pound avoirdupois consists of 16, and a pound avoirdupois weighs more than a troy pound does.
The problem with this answer is that it's not complete; it's just a coincidence that the ultimate result ("the feathers are heavier") is correct. Just as a pound avoirdupois weighs more than a troy pound, an ounce avoirdupois weighs less than a troy ounce. But this difference, even though it goes in the opposite direction, isn't enough to outweigh the difference between 16 vs 12 ounces per pound.
Without acknowledging the difference in the ounces, the official answer to the riddle is just as wrong as the naive answer is.