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>I see many people claim GPT-n is "dumb" Depends. Can't do math or logic. I have a question I ask ChatGPT to see if it can do logic yet, it still cannot. (Can

>I see many people claim GPT-n is "dumb" Depends. Can't do math or logic. I have a question I ask ChatGPT to see if it can do logic yet, it still cannot. (Can't mention this question here or it will get fixed.) Its great for brain storming or low risk problems. I don't think the accuracy problem will ever be fixed. I probably 5x my productivity as well, but that doesnt mean its able to do logic.

malfist 3y ago
> Can't mention this question here or it will get fixed Why is that a problem?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  This happens with a lot of "test prompts." People don't release these because they want the underlying issue fixed, but the AI companies instead change the RLHF process to patch your particular example.
  - ldhough 3y ago
    An example: GPT4 at release still had issues with "What is heavier, a pound of feathers or two pounds of bricks." It would very consistently claim that they were equal in weight because usually the question is posed with the weights being equal. A bunch of people were mentioning it online and now it doesn't work anymore.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      The same issue occurred with the test, "What is heavier, a pound of feathers or a Great British pound?" There is an obvious answer here, but ChatGPT was insisting they are the same weight.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - letmevoteplease 3y ago
      I don't believe GPT-4 has ever failed this question. Here is a tweet from the release day showing it passing the question: https://twitter.com/charles_irl/status/1635699547023482880 https://twitter.com/charles_irl/status/1635699547023482880 Note that Bing seems to use something weaker than GPT-4 in Balanced mode.
      - ldhough 3y ago
        Phrased slightly differently, my result with GPT4 on launch day was: > What weighs more, two pounds of feathers or a pound of bricks? > A pound of bricks weighs more than two pounds of feathers. However, it seems like you might have made an error in your question, as the comparison is usually made between a pound of feathers and a pound of bricks. In that case, both would weigh the same—one pound—though the volume and density of the two materials would be very different. It did note that the phrasing was odd, which I forgot, but the answer is actually somehow more wrong than just saying they weigh the same. Another launch day test, appending "think about it": > What weighs more, two pounds of feathers or a pound of bricks? Think about it. > A pound of bricks weighs more than two pounds of feathers. This statement is incorrect. In reality, two pounds of feathers weigh more than a pound of bricks. The key difference between the two is their density; bricks are denser than feathers, so they take up less space for the same weight. However, when comparing the weight of two pounds of feathers to one pound of bricks, the feathers will indeed weigh more because there is a greater quantity of them (two pounds) than there is of bricks (one pound). Today it consistently gets the question 100% correct with no help, so I do think they did something besides updating the base model.
- bena 3y ago
  I don't think it's a problem per se, but it will cease to be a good example of a break in GPT because once it's "fixed", people will point to it and say "nuh-uh". When really, the "fix" is "put the answer in the model". GPT didn't learn anything. It didn't generate the solution on its own. It's not indicative of GPT being able to solve that class of problem, just that one problem. Which seems to be the entire thrust of GPT in general. It can't solve types of problems, it can solve existing problems if they have existing solutions.
- akiselev 3y ago
  A little RLHF is enough to fix most logic errors in a superficial way. For example, this is my favorite class of reasoning tests: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35155467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35155467 Over the last few months, I've seen dozens of people try hundreds of variations of that cabbage/goat/lion riddle and it failed all of them. I just tried it on GPT4 and it looks like it finally got "fixed" - it no longer ignores explicit instructions not to leave the lion and cabbage together. However, it doesn't actually fix any reasoning ability in ChatGPT (It has none!). Changing cabbage/goat/lion to carrot/rabbit/puma respectively, for example: > Suppose I have a carrot, a rabbit and a puma, and I need to get them across a river. I have a boat that can only carry myself and a single other item. I am not allowed to leave the carrot and puma alone together, and I am not allowed to leave the puma and rabbit alone together. How can I safely get all three across? GPT4's response starts with "First, take the rabbit across the river and leave it on the other side.", ignoring the explicit instructions not to leave the puma and carrot alone together (the exact same failure mode as the previous variant). Now that I've posted it, it will get fixed eventually - the cabbage/goat/lion fix took months. When it does I'll use "cheese/mouse/elephant" or something.
  - jtmoulia 3y ago
    As far as I can tell this error depends on the LLM assuming rabbits (as opposed to pumas) eat carrots -- if you just append "Note: this rabbit doesn't eat carrots" GPT-4 will answer correctly on the first go. > 1, First, take the puma across the river and leave it on the other side.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - akiselev 3y ago
      Did you try it more than once? First run: 1. First, take the rabbit across the river and leave it on the other side. - https://imgur.com/a/ZwoBTah https://imgur.com/a/ZwoBTah Second run: 1. Take the rabbit across the river. - https://imgur.com/a/Faq95U5 https://imgur.com/a/Faq95U5 Third run: 1. First, take the puma across the river and leave it on the other side. - https://imgur.com/a/eIUeHM3 https://imgur.com/a/eIUeHM3
kypro 3y ago
When you say "it can't do logic" what do you mean? "Logic" can be as simple as A=A, A!=B or as arbitrarily complex as you wish. In my experience GPT-4 can solve unique logical puzzles, but I find it can be a bit clumsy with the context of more complex problems. What I mean by that is that it often can solve these problems with the right prompt, but you might need to ask it to think out loud and check its logic.
- kytazo 3y ago
  Aristotle has defined logic in Organon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organon
  - kytazo 3y ago
    For the people downvoting, his work was literally where logic originates from. Not only he theorized about it but he also described the exact rules which define logic. The origin of the very word Logic has its roots in that exact era as phrased at the time, by the very people who came up with its ruleset in the first place. You may define logic otherwise but in the context of past occurrences they're more or less irrelevant.
- bentcorner 3y ago
  Not OP but here's an example of how GPT-4 can't deal with the goat/wolf/cabbage problem when things are switched up just a little. https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/gpt-4-capabilities https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/gpt-4-capabilities Although it's interesting that if you use different nouns it does just fine: https://jbconsulting.substack.com/p/its-not-just-statistics-gpt-4-does https://jbconsulting.substack.com/p/its-not-just-statistics-...
  - cubefox 3y ago
    I asked Bing a variant of the Wason selection task (a logic test/riddle). Instead of answering directly, it searched the Web for "Wason selection task solution" (so it knew what the task was called, I didn't give it the name), and then provided its answer based on that search result. Except the task in the search result was different in the specifics (different colors) so it gave the wrong answer. Also insisted that its solution was right. Though maybe that's an issue with Microsoft's fine-tuning rather than with the base model itself.
ptidhomme 3y ago
> Its great for brain storming or low risk problems Definately. I resort to GPT when I have no clue where to even start digging a problem, like not even knowing what keywords to google. I just prompt my candid question and GPT does help narrowing things down.
santiagobasulto 3y ago
It can do math and/or logic. Take a look at the "Chain of Thought" and "Few Shots" prompting techniques.

malfist 3y ago

> Can't mention this question here or it will get fixed Why is that a problem?

pclmulqdq 3y ago
This happens with a lot of "test prompts." People don't release these because they want the underlying issue fixed, but the AI companies instead change the RLHF process to patch your particular example.
- ldhough 3y ago
  An example: GPT4 at release still had issues with "What is heavier, a pound of feathers or two pounds of bricks." It would very consistently claim that they were equal in weight because usually the question is posed with the weights being equal. A bunch of people were mentioning it online and now it doesn't work anymore.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    The same issue occurred with the test, "What is heavier, a pound of feathers or a Great British pound?" There is an obvious answer here, but ChatGPT was insisting they are the same weight.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - letmevoteplease 3y ago
    I don't believe GPT-4 has ever failed this question. Here is a tweet from the release day showing it passing the question: https://twitter.com/charles_irl/status/1635699547023482880 https://twitter.com/charles_irl/status/1635699547023482880 Note that Bing seems to use something weaker than GPT-4 in Balanced mode.
    - ldhough 3y ago
      Phrased slightly differently, my result with GPT4 on launch day was: > What weighs more, two pounds of feathers or a pound of bricks? > A pound of bricks weighs more than two pounds of feathers. However, it seems like you might have made an error in your question, as the comparison is usually made between a pound of feathers and a pound of bricks. In that case, both would weigh the same—one pound—though the volume and density of the two materials would be very different. It did note that the phrasing was odd, which I forgot, but the answer is actually somehow more wrong than just saying they weigh the same. Another launch day test, appending "think about it": > What weighs more, two pounds of feathers or a pound of bricks? Think about it. > A pound of bricks weighs more than two pounds of feathers. This statement is incorrect. In reality, two pounds of feathers weigh more than a pound of bricks. The key difference between the two is their density; bricks are denser than feathers, so they take up less space for the same weight. However, when comparing the weight of two pounds of feathers to one pound of bricks, the feathers will indeed weigh more because there is a greater quantity of them (two pounds) than there is of bricks (one pound). Today it consistently gets the question 100% correct with no help, so I do think they did something besides updating the base model.
bena 3y ago
I don't think it's a problem per se, but it will cease to be a good example of a break in GPT because once it's "fixed", people will point to it and say "nuh-uh". When really, the "fix" is "put the answer in the model". GPT didn't learn anything. It didn't generate the solution on its own. It's not indicative of GPT being able to solve that class of problem, just that one problem. Which seems to be the entire thrust of GPT in general. It can't solve types of problems, it can solve existing problems if they have existing solutions.
akiselev 3y ago
A little RLHF is enough to fix most logic errors in a superficial way. For example, this is my favorite class of reasoning tests: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35155467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35155467 Over the last few months, I've seen dozens of people try hundreds of variations of that cabbage/goat/lion riddle and it failed all of them. I just tried it on GPT4 and it looks like it finally got "fixed" - it no longer ignores explicit instructions not to leave the lion and cabbage together. However, it doesn't actually fix any reasoning ability in ChatGPT (It has none!). Changing cabbage/goat/lion to carrot/rabbit/puma respectively, for example: > Suppose I have a carrot, a rabbit and a puma, and I need to get them across a river. I have a boat that can only carry myself and a single other item. I am not allowed to leave the carrot and puma alone together, and I am not allowed to leave the puma and rabbit alone together. How can I safely get all three across? GPT4's response starts with "First, take the rabbit across the river and leave it on the other side.", ignoring the explicit instructions not to leave the puma and carrot alone together (the exact same failure mode as the previous variant). Now that I've posted it, it will get fixed eventually - the cabbage/goat/lion fix took months. When it does I'll use "cheese/mouse/elephant" or something.
- jtmoulia 3y ago
  As far as I can tell this error depends on the LLM assuming rabbits (as opposed to pumas) eat carrots -- if you just append "Note: this rabbit doesn't eat carrots" GPT-4 will answer correctly on the first go. > 1, First, take the puma across the river and leave it on the other side.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - akiselev 3y ago
    Did you try it more than once? First run: 1. First, take the rabbit across the river and leave it on the other side. - https://imgur.com/a/ZwoBTah https://imgur.com/a/ZwoBTah Second run: 1. Take the rabbit across the river. - https://imgur.com/a/Faq95U5 https://imgur.com/a/Faq95U5 Third run: 1. First, take the puma across the river and leave it on the other side. - https://imgur.com/a/eIUeHM3 https://imgur.com/a/eIUeHM3

kypro 3y ago

When you say "it can't do logic" what do you mean? "Logic" can be as simple as A=A, A!=B or as arbitrarily complex as you wish. In my experience GPT-4 can solve unique logical puzzles, but I find it can be a bit clumsy with the context of more complex problems. What I mean by that is that it often can solve these problems with the right prompt, but you might need to ask it to think out loud and check its logic.

kytazo 3y ago
Aristotle has defined logic in Organon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organon
- kytazo 3y ago
  For the people downvoting, his work was literally where logic originates from. Not only he theorized about it but he also described the exact rules which define logic. The origin of the very word Logic has its roots in that exact era as phrased at the time, by the very people who came up with its ruleset in the first place. You may define logic otherwise but in the context of past occurrences they're more or less irrelevant.
bentcorner 3y ago
Not OP but here's an example of how GPT-4 can't deal with the goat/wolf/cabbage problem when things are switched up just a little. https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/gpt-4-capabilities https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/gpt-4-capabilities Although it's interesting that if you use different nouns it does just fine: https://jbconsulting.substack.com/p/its-not-just-statistics-gpt-4-does https://jbconsulting.substack.com/p/its-not-just-statistics-...
- cubefox 3y ago
  I asked Bing a variant of the Wason selection task (a logic test/riddle). Instead of answering directly, it searched the Web for "Wason selection task solution" (so it knew what the task was called, I didn't give it the name), and then provided its answer based on that search result. Except the task in the search result was different in the specifics (different colors) so it gave the wrong answer. Also insisted that its solution was right. Though maybe that's an issue with Microsoft's fine-tuning rather than with the base model itself.

ptidhomme 3y ago

> Its great for brain storming or low risk problems Definately. I resort to GPT when I have no clue where to even start digging a problem, like not even knowing what keywords to google. I just prompt my candid question and GPT does help narrowing things down.

santiagobasulto 3y ago

It can do math and/or logic. Take a look at the "Chain of Thought" and "Few Shots" prompting techniques.