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

Post by viking123 » Mon, Feb 16, 2026, 11:28 AM UTC

mk89 wrote: post #414

nicbou wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that issue constantly. I somehow can't get any LLM to ask me clarifying questions before spitting out a wall of text with incorrect assumptions. I find it particularly frustrating.

The way I see it is that long game is to have agents in your life that memorize and understand your routine, facts, more and more. Imagine having an agent that knows about cars, and more specifically your car, when the checkups are due, when you washed it last time, etc., another one that knows more about your hobbies, another that knows more about your XYZ etc. The more specific they are, the more accurate they typi…

Post by dist-epoch » Mon, Feb 16, 2026, 11:31 AM UTC

ninjagoo wrote: post #234

I wonder if the providers are doing everyone, themselves included, a huge disservice by providing free versions of their models that are so incompetent compared to the SOTA models that these types of q&a go viral because the ai hype doesn't match the reality for unpaid users. And it's not just the viral questions that are an issue. I've seen people getting sub-optimal results for $1000+ PC comparisons from the free r…

Post by prmoustache » Mon, Feb 16, 2026, 11:36 AM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #410

londons_explore wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we fed it the whole internet and every library as training data... By now it should know this stuff.

Even I don’t “know” how many “R”s there are in “strawberry”. I don’t keep that information in my brain. What I do keep is the spelling of the word “strawberry” and the skill of being able to count so that I can derive the answer to that question anytime I need.

Post by LasEspuelas » Mon, Feb 16, 2026, 11:42 AM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #147

prasoonds wrote: post #46

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 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…

Post by Barbing » Mon, Feb 16, 2026, 11:44 AM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #417

scott_w wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're ascribing understanding to the LLM, which is not what it's doing. If the LLM understood you, it would realise it's a trick question and, assuming it was British, reply with "You'd drive it because how else would you get it to the car wash you absolute tit." Even the higher level reasoning, while answering the question correctly, don't grasp the higher context that the question is obviously a trick question…

> They still answer earnestly. Gemini at least is putting some snark into its response: “Unless you've mastered the art of carrying a 4,000-pound vehicle over your shoulder, you should definitely drive. While 150 feet is a very short walk, it's a bit difficult to wash a car that isn't actually at the car wash!”