Probably should’ve just asked Wolfram Alpha

    • @[email protected]
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      751 month ago

      What, your printer doesn’t have a full keyboard under its battery? You’ve gotta get with the times my man.

    • Otter
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      1 month ago

      It sounds like some weird ritual that someone scratched into a notebook.

      𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿?? under battery, m͟u͟s͟t͟ f͟i͟n͟d͟ k͟e͟y͟s͟

        • Otter
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          81 month ago

          I actually sent a bunch of prompts through image generators till it gave something close to what I wanted

          Using generative AI to try and visualize generative AI

          • @[email protected]
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            31 month ago

            Ah, that’s why it’s a bunch of symbols that make no sense, thanks for the clarification.

    • Wilmo Bones
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      181 month ago

      80 year old grandmas trying to find the Ctrl and Alt buttons on her printer…

      • @marcos
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        1 month ago

        Did she look under the battery?

  • Deebster
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    1 month ago

    Google’s AI seems dumber than the rest, for example here’s Kagi answering the same (using Claude):


    edit: typoed question originally

    Perhaps Google’s tried to make it run too cheaply - Kagi’s one doesn’t run unless you ask for it, and as a paid product it’ll have different priorities.

    • @[email protected]
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      There are two meanings being conflated here.

      “1/3 more” can mean “+ 1/3” or "* (1 + 1/3)“.

      So “1/3 more than 1/3” could be 2/3 or 4/9, but not 1/2.

      Instead 1/2 is 1/2 more than 1/3, not 1/3 more. That’s the meme I’ve seen go around recently.

      • Deebster
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        1 month ago

        Yes, and the Google AI response is correct (and quite clear) in what it says. edit: Thanks Batman. I mean that Google’s understanding of the question is logical (although still the maths is wrong as you say (now I’ve re-read you)) and its answer explained the angle it was answering from.

        However, I think the reasonable assumption for the intention behind the question is relative to a whole. I had third of a pizza, and now I have an extra sixth of a pizza. It’s subtle, but that’s the kind of thing AI falls down on.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 month ago

          I agree with your assessment regarding the intention of the phrase. We’re back at the silly arithmetic meme that hinges on not grouping terms explicitly and watching people yell at each other in the mistaken belief that there’s one authoritative interpretation of an ambiguous string of symbols.

          Still, the actual mistake remains. Why an extra 1/6 of the pizza? 1/3 of 1/3 is 1/9, not 1/6. That’s 1/2 of 1/3.

          • Deebster
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            41 month ago

            I thought we were finally agreeing fully! My understanding of the question is “what is the difference between a third (of a pizza, say) and a half?”

            1/2 - 1/3 = 1/6
            1/2 = 1/3 + 1/6
            a half is one sixth more than a third.

            btw, I fixed my Kagi screenshot since I’d missed a word from the question (reading comprehension’s clearly not my strong point today)

        • @[email protected]
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          21 month ago

          You are saying “yes” to a comment explaining why the Google AI response cannot possibly be correct, so what do you mean “and [it’s] correct”?

          • Deebster
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            31 month ago

            Ah, you’re right - I misunderstood jbrain’s point to just be about the “relative to the original” understanding. Guess I’m no smarter than Google’s AI.

    • @bulwark
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      31 month ago

      Kagi has Claude built in? I’ve been using it for a year and didn’t know that.

      • xigoi
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        31 month ago

        It tries to auto-determine when to trigger, but you can explicitly trigger it by putting a question mark after your query.

      • @stetech
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        21 month ago

        This is why Kagi is a great company.

        Nobody is getting LLM functionality shoved in their faces unless they wanted to.

    • @[email protected]
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      228 days ago

      this is why i like the DDG approach: don’t have the LLM try to reason, just have it pull information from sources you’ve checked aren’t completely insane, and summarize an answer from there.

    • @okamiueru
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      101 month ago

      Sure, but, what does that have to do with the AI answer? Wait… Are you an AI?

    • @[email protected]
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      41 month ago

      I think thats an issue with AI, it has been so much trained on complex questions that now when you ask a simple one, it mistakes it for a complex one and answers it that way

      • @[email protected]
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        91 month ago

        The issue is it’s an LLM. It puts words in an order that’s statistically plausible but has no reasoning power.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        It’s auto-complete. It knows that “4” is the most common substring to follow “2 + 2” in its training. It’s not actually doing addition.

  • @SkunkWorkz
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    341 month ago

    Now ask it if a Third-of-a-Pound burger is bigger than a Quarter Pounder

  • @elbucho
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    201 month ago

    This is very clearly an example of bad AI, but maybe it was trying (and failing) to convey this?

    Basically, 1/3 + 1/9 + 1/27 + 1/81 + … + 1/3^n = 1/2.

    Probably not. But maybe.

    • FuglyDuck
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      151 month ago

      I’m thinking it’s trying to say:

      (2/6) + (1/6) = (3/6) = (4/6) - (1/6)

      But either in “colloquial English for those who want to give other people aneurysms” or “colloquial English for those trying to sound smarter but aren’t”

      Basically that the degree of difference between a half and a third is the same degree of difference between a half and two thirds- and that degree of difference is “one part”.

      • @[email protected]
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        151 month ago

        It’s not trying to say either of them.

        It’s just guessing what word to say next, given the previous words in the context.

        • FuglyDuck
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          31 month ago

          Definitely true, of course,

    • Zagorath
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      251 month ago

      “a half is one-third more than a third” should mean either

      1/3 + 1/3 = 1/2

      Or

      1/3 + (1/3 × 1/3) = 1/2

      Neither of which is true.

      • lad
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        31 month ago

        I feel like ‘a half is one-third more than a third’ is ambiguous and same as in ‘X is N% more than Y’ one may use X or Y as 100%

        I’m sure that one interpretation is more common, but I don’t think that it is exclusively correct

        • Zagorath
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          11 month ago

          Basically, “X is one-third more than Y” means either X = (4/3) × Y or X = Y + 1/3. I’m fine with either interpretation.

          The problem is that with the values of X and Y in this example, neither interpretation produces a valid equation.

  • @[email protected]
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    141 month ago

    LLMs are really fucking bad at math. They’re trying to find the statistical close answer, not doing computation. It’s rather mind-numbingly dumb.

    • @[email protected]
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      61 month ago

      Unfortunately a shockingly large number of people don’t get this… including my old boss who was running an AI-based startup 💀

  • @[email protected]
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    141 month ago

    “42”

    “The answer to life the universe and everything is 42!?”

    “Yes, I checked it quite thoroughly.”

    “But what was the actual question?”


    Alternatively, garbage in, garbage out.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 month ago

        That’s like having google make a pizza with everything in my fridge then they complain that I also keep the dog’s food in there.

    • @YarHarSuperstar
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      51 month ago

      Wouldn’t even be surprised at this point. It seems the system is intentionally designed to discourage critical thinking and apparently knowing how to do math properly is too close for comfort now.

      • @[email protected]
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        Someone I know had an old friend on their Facebook timeline say that schools should be reformed and don’t need classes like algebra. Then they proceeded to list fields kids could receive training for instead… and all of them required math of some sort.

  • @[email protected]
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    Oh. I just noticed the extraneous word in the search, which might be throwing off the LLM trying to understand it.

    • @[email protected]
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      I asked ChatGPT these questions and got sensible answers.

      How much more is one half than one third?

      [subtraction answer: 1/6 more]

      That’s one possibility, but what about the other way to interpret that question?

      [ratio answer, but expressed as “1.5 times as much” rather than “1/2 more”]

  • @[email protected]
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    41 month ago

    I read it as “A third of a third plus a third is a half.” Which makes sense to me. What an I missing?

    • Something Burger 🍔
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      It’s wrong. 1/3 + (1/3 * 1/3) = 3/9 + 1/9 = 4/9. It’s close though.

      However, one third plus one half of a third is correct. 1/3 + (1/2 * 1/3) = 1/3 + (1.5/3 * 1/3) = 1/3 + 0.5/3 = 1.5/3 = 1/2

      • @[email protected]
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        21 month ago

        I’m guessing whatever it scraped to generate this was intended for divvying up food rather than doing actual math. 1/3 plus a third of a third is close enough to a half if you’re talking about portioning out pizza or leftovers or what have you.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 month ago

          Yep, the difference between .444… And .5 is only .0555…

          Who notices 5 nintieths of something? That’s going to be within the error of sloppy measuring anyways

        • @mojofrododojo
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          11 month ago

          divvying up food rather than doing actual math.

          divvying up - dividing food into equal proportions - is math.

    • @mojofrododojo
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      11 month ago

      What an I missing?

      basic arithmetic? .33 + .33 doesn’t = .5

    • @MercuriOP
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      128 days ago

      You dropped this: /s

  • @givesomefucks
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    Divide 50% by 3 and get 16.666666…

    Add that to the 50%, you gets 66.6666…%

    Which is the same as dividing a whole into 3 and adding two together.

    It’s trying to get there, but it seems to think you’re talking about starting with 50% and increasing that by 1/3 of the existing half.

    It interpreted what you typed as something like:

    X=50

    Y=x/3

    Solve for:

    X+Y

    And gave you 66.666…%

    But you could also just get a calculator and type 50 - 33.33333

    I don’t know why anyone would Google this question in a search engine, AI is dumb enough without trying to phrase things in a way that you think it says something stupid.

    Like, did you legitimately Google it that way in an attempt find out the difference between half and a third?

    • @MercuriOP
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      11 month ago

      It’s trying to get there, but it seems to think you’re talking about starting with 50% and increasing that by 1/3 of the existing half.

      Yeah, it’s definitely trying something. But it’s also showing the problems with LLM.

      Like, did you legitimately Google it that way in an attempt find out the difference between half and a third?

      I remember being able to put basic math problems into Google and it spit out the correct answer. But you’re right, that’s entirely on me for expecting Google to work right after all the enshitification. For the record, Wolfram Alpha gave the correct answer.

      • @givesomefucks
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        11 month ago

        I remember being able to put basic math problems into Google and it spit out the correct answer

        Pretty sure you can still do that if you don’t type it out as weird as possible…

        But I haven’t tried to Google something in over a year.

        Have fun tho I guess.

      • tiredofsametab
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        11 month ago

        LLMs predict statistical likelihoods of words coming next. Them not being able to do math, unless explicitly given extra instructions to identify and do those problems, has been reported before, IIRC.