7 ms·

This is first model that gets this puzzle right “three missionaries and three cannibals must cross a river using a boat which can carry at most two people, but

This is first model that gets this puzzle right “three missionaries and three cannibals must cross a river using a boat which can carry at most two people, but these are nice cannibals so they don't eat people under the any constraints, for both banks, if there are missionaries present on the bank, they can be outnumbered by cannibals (if they were, the cannibals would not eat the missionaries). The boat cannot cross the river by itself with no people on board how to solve this?

PoignardAzur 3y ago
... Could you reformulate the puzzle? Right now I couldn't solve it.
- washadjeffmad 3y ago
  As written, it's not a logistics puzzle, it's a test of reading comprehension. Both the missionaries and cannibals are people, and the cannibals don't eat people, so neither the missionaries nor cannibals are in danger of being eaten. Any person may man the boat to ferry any other person across.
  - jerkstate 3y ago
    Why are they called cannibals if they don’t eat people?
    - byyll 3y ago
      They are fasting.
    - kromem 3y ago
      Cannibals don't necessarily kill the people they eat. For example, there's cannibalistic tribes that eat their recently departed ancestors as part of their tradition, but that's their only form of cannibalism. Cannibalism technically only relates to the eating of humans. Not to the killing of them. If anything, the assumption that cannibals would kill and eat the missionaries is the leap of logic.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    Given it's not grammatically or well-formed, I don't feel it's reasonable to assume a given reading as there are multiple possible readings that all requires assuming a certain set of corrections to punctuations or words. Frankly, the only "correct" response to this is to not offer a solution, but to suggest one or more possible readings and asking for corrections, as it's not solvable without knowing how to resolve the grammatical errors.
    - washadjeffmad 3y ago
      In the absence of any prior knowledge, perhaps. But if you're aware that "missionaries and cannibals" [1] is a common toy problem for LLMs, this variation becomes an apparent anti-logic puzzle. Also, because we know that punctuation, capitalization, and special characters are removed prior to vectorization, they can be disregarded by us, as well. We do not need more perfect grammar or syntax. Thus, there is sufficient probability of intent in the information encoded that we can reject any attempts to solve it that use cannibalism as a constraint. That is the test. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionaries_and_cannibals_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionaries_and_cannibals_p...
      - vidarh 3y ago
        It might well be an "anti logic" puzzle but that doesn't change the severely broken grammar which makes it unclear how exactly the rules are changed. And the fact several of us were left here wondering about the meaning is clear evidence that it's unreasonable to expect it to be comprehensible to an LLM, and even more so to treat it as a good test, because it's severely compromised by the broken description. I stand by my assessment, which is that an LLM should be rated as failing this unless it responds by either setting out a plausible interpretation and asking if it is right or asking for a clarification. And so should people. The illogical response here is to assume toknow (rather than is guessing) what was intended. The expected response would be to be confused, as you can see from the replies.
iudqnolq 3y ago
"they don't eat people under the any constraints" isn't comprehensible. Do you mean the cannibals never eat people and so any solution is valid? edit: What is the solution you want? I tried plugging your exact words into the model posted and got nonsense (a repeat of the question and then the word "Mathematics"). If I add the prefix "Solve this puzzle: " I get three obviously stupid solution, including starting off with some people already across or just putting all six people in the boat and ignoring the capacity. https://pastebin.com/raw/JLu0eGkx https://pastebin.com/raw/JLu0eGkx
- vidarh 3y ago
  I think he means they won't eat missionaries if left in the banks with them, but will do if in the boat with them.
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    Then what about the clause about outnumbering? Regardless this is clearly an unreasonable test as phrased.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      My guess is this reading, but the grammar is so broken that it's not at all obvious or clear that I've guessed right: “three missionaries and three cannibals must cross a river using a boat which can carry at most two people, but these are nice cannibals so they don't eat people under these constraints: for both banks, if there are missionaries present on the bank, they can be outnumbered by cannibals (if they were, the cannibals would not eat the missionaries). The boat cannot cross the river by itself with no people on board how to solve this?" In other words, I think what they tried to express is that on the banks the missionaries are safe even if outnumbered. But in the boat they are not. So the rule would be that a missionary can't be in a boat with a cannibal. If so, a solution is: - Send two cannibals over - Send one back with the boat. - Send two missionaries over - here's where rule matters, as the remaining missionary is now on the bank with two cannibals, but that's fine. - Send one missionary back - Send two missionaries over. All missionaries are now on the same side. - Send one cannibal back. - Send two cannibals over. Still, I think the closest you can get to being "right" on this is to offer up a possible reading of the rules, solve it given that reading is right and ask for a confirmation. I think I wouldn't accept an answer as "correct" here without seeking clarification about whether you got the rules right, as just assuming a given reading is unreasonable when it's this unclear.
Ukv 3y ago
> but these are nice cannibals so they don't eat people under the any constraints, for both banks, if there are missionaries present on the bank, they can be outnumbered by cannibals (if they were, the cannibals would not eat the missionaries). I think I understand what you intend the puzzle to be, but you're saying the opposite of what you actually mean here.
- kromem 3y ago
  No, that's their intent. A lot of the LLMs have trouble with variations on typical logic puzzles. If you change an aspect, they will still regress to autocompleting the standard solution. In some cases, you can still get them to solve the variation, but it often takes finessing to break the token patterns (things like replacing the nouns with emojis or instructing that it repeat the variation parts when thinking through the solution in a CoT). The solution for the above should be the minimum number of trips (three) taking two at a time to the other side, no extra stuff.
  - Ukv 3y ago
    > No, that's their intent. A lot of GP's comments elsewhere are similarly malformed, like: "I was thinking same, had hobby project where I did uploaded csv to DuckDb and then I use generate queries with chatgpt but building sematic layer top op duckdb sound much better." Still understandable, but enough that I suspect the mistakes in their above comment are also just mistakes, opposed to intentionally testing the model's response to broken grammar and cannibals that seemingly never eat anyone. > The solution for the above should be the minimum number of trips (three) taking two at a time to the other side, no extra stuff. I believe that's the wrong interpretation of what the author is probably asking. Ideally it should ask for clarification on what's meant. Barring that, I'd say it should interpret the question in the way that makes the most sense - assuming just invalid wording rather than both invalid wording and intentional trickery. (also, given the boat cannot make the return on its own, you'd still need more than three trips)

PoignardAzur 3y ago

... Could you reformulate the puzzle? Right now I couldn't solve it.

washadjeffmad 3y ago
As written, it's not a logistics puzzle, it's a test of reading comprehension. Both the missionaries and cannibals are people, and the cannibals don't eat people, so neither the missionaries nor cannibals are in danger of being eaten. Any person may man the boat to ferry any other person across.
- jerkstate 3y ago
  Why are they called cannibals if they don’t eat people?
  - byyll 3y ago
    They are fasting.
  - kromem 3y ago
    Cannibals don't necessarily kill the people they eat. For example, there's cannibalistic tribes that eat their recently departed ancestors as part of their tradition, but that's their only form of cannibalism. Cannibalism technically only relates to the eating of humans. Not to the killing of them. If anything, the assumption that cannibals would kill and eat the missionaries is the leap of logic.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Given it's not grammatically or well-formed, I don't feel it's reasonable to assume a given reading as there are multiple possible readings that all requires assuming a certain set of corrections to punctuations or words. Frankly, the only "correct" response to this is to not offer a solution, but to suggest one or more possible readings and asking for corrections, as it's not solvable without knowing how to resolve the grammatical errors.
  - washadjeffmad 3y ago
    In the absence of any prior knowledge, perhaps. But if you're aware that "missionaries and cannibals" [1] is a common toy problem for LLMs, this variation becomes an apparent anti-logic puzzle. Also, because we know that punctuation, capitalization, and special characters are removed prior to vectorization, they can be disregarded by us, as well. We do not need more perfect grammar or syntax. Thus, there is sufficient probability of intent in the information encoded that we can reject any attempts to solve it that use cannibalism as a constraint. That is the test. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionaries_and_cannibals_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionaries_and_cannibals_p...
    - vidarh 3y ago
      It might well be an "anti logic" puzzle but that doesn't change the severely broken grammar which makes it unclear how exactly the rules are changed. And the fact several of us were left here wondering about the meaning is clear evidence that it's unreasonable to expect it to be comprehensible to an LLM, and even more so to treat it as a good test, because it's severely compromised by the broken description. I stand by my assessment, which is that an LLM should be rated as failing this unless it responds by either setting out a plausible interpretation and asking if it is right or asking for a clarification. And so should people. The illogical response here is to assume toknow (rather than is guessing) what was intended. The expected response would be to be confused, as you can see from the replies.

iudqnolq 3y ago

"they don't eat people under the any constraints" isn't comprehensible. Do you mean the cannibals never eat people and so any solution is valid? edit: What is the solution you want? I tried plugging your exact words into the model posted and got nonsense (a repeat of the question and then the word "Mathematics"). If I add the prefix "Solve this puzzle: " I get three obviously stupid solution, including starting off with some people already across or just putting all six people in the boat and ignoring the capacity. https://pastebin.com/raw/JLu0eGkx https://pastebin.com/raw/JLu0eGkx

vidarh 3y ago
I think he means they won't eat missionaries if left in the banks with them, but will do if in the boat with them.
- iudqnolq 3y ago
  Then what about the clause about outnumbering? Regardless this is clearly an unreasonable test as phrased.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    My guess is this reading, but the grammar is so broken that it's not at all obvious or clear that I've guessed right: “three missionaries and three cannibals must cross a river using a boat which can carry at most two people, but these are nice cannibals so they don't eat people under these constraints: for both banks, if there are missionaries present on the bank, they can be outnumbered by cannibals (if they were, the cannibals would not eat the missionaries). The boat cannot cross the river by itself with no people on board how to solve this?" In other words, I think what they tried to express is that on the banks the missionaries are safe even if outnumbered. But in the boat they are not. So the rule would be that a missionary can't be in a boat with a cannibal. If so, a solution is: - Send two cannibals over - Send one back with the boat. - Send two missionaries over - here's where rule matters, as the remaining missionary is now on the bank with two cannibals, but that's fine. - Send one missionary back - Send two missionaries over. All missionaries are now on the same side. - Send one cannibal back. - Send two cannibals over. Still, I think the closest you can get to being "right" on this is to offer up a possible reading of the rules, solve it given that reading is right and ask for a confirmation. I think I wouldn't accept an answer as "correct" here without seeking clarification about whether you got the rules right, as just assuming a given reading is unreasonable when it's this unclear.

Ukv 3y ago

> but these are nice cannibals so they don't eat people under the any constraints, for both banks, if there are missionaries present on the bank, they can be outnumbered by cannibals (if they were, the cannibals would not eat the missionaries). I think I understand what you intend the puzzle to be, but you're saying the opposite of what you actually mean here.

kromem 3y ago
No, that's their intent. A lot of the LLMs have trouble with variations on typical logic puzzles. If you change an aspect, they will still regress to autocompleting the standard solution. In some cases, you can still get them to solve the variation, but it often takes finessing to break the token patterns (things like replacing the nouns with emojis or instructing that it repeat the variation parts when thinking through the solution in a CoT). The solution for the above should be the minimum number of trips (three) taking two at a time to the other side, no extra stuff.
- Ukv 3y ago
  > No, that's their intent. A lot of GP's comments elsewhere are similarly malformed, like: "I was thinking same, had hobby project where I did uploaded csv to DuckDb and then I use generate queries with chatgpt but building sematic layer top op duckdb sound much better." Still understandable, but enough that I suspect the mistakes in their above comment are also just mistakes, opposed to intentionally testing the model's response to broken grammar and cannibals that seemingly never eat anyone. > The solution for the above should be the minimum number of trips (three) taking two at a time to the other side, no extra stuff. I believe that's the wrong interpretation of what the author is probably asking. Ideally it should ask for clarification on what's meant. Barring that, I'd say it should interpret the question in the way that makes the most sense - assuming just invalid wording rather than both invalid wording and intentional trickery. (also, given the boat cannot make the return on its own, you'd still need more than three trips)