Probably should’ve just asked Wolfram Alpha

    • @Pyro@programming.dev
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      784 months 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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      4 months ago

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

      𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿?? under battery, m͟u͟s͟t͟ f͟i͟n͟d͟ k͟e͟y͟s͟

    • Wilmo Bones
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      184 months ago

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

  • Deebster
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    4 months 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.

    • @jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      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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        4 months 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.

        • @jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months 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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            44 months 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)

        • @BatmanAoD@programming.dev
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          24 months 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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            34 months 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.

      • xigoi
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        34 months ago

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

      • @stetech@lemmy.world
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        24 months ago

        This is why Kagi is a great company.

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

    • @Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      24 months 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.

    • Zagorath
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      284 months 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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        34 months 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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          14 months 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.

  • @elbucho@lemmy.world
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    204 months 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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      164 months 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”.

  • @deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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    164 months 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.

  • @skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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    144 months 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.

    • @YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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      54 months 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.

      • @orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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        4 months ago

        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.

  • @notfromhere@lemmy.ml
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    44 months 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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      4 months ago

      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

      • @mister_flibble@lemm.ee
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        24 months 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.

        • @Revan343@lemmy.ca
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          14 months 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

  • Xavienth
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    44 months ago

    I don’t even look at the AI result. I scroll right past. That’s the thing, if it’s bullshit 50% of the time, and you can’t always tell like you can here, then it’s bullshit 100% of the time, and it’s useless, just taking up screen real estate.

  • @jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Oh. I just noticed the extraneous word in the search, which might be throwing off the LLM trying to understand it.

    • @jbrains@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      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”]