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Gemini fast > That is a classic "efficiency vs. logic" dilemma. Honestly, unless you’ve invented a way to teleport or you're planning on washing the car with a
by vlovich123 8mo ago
Gemini fast
> That is a classic "efficiency vs. logic" dilemma. Honestly, unless you’ve invented a way to teleport or you're planning on washing the car with a very long garden hose from your driveway, you’re going to have to drive.
> While 50 meters is a great distance for a morning stroll, it’s a bit difficult to get the car through the automated brushes (or under the pressure washer) if you aren't behind the wheel.
Gemini thinking:
> Unless you’ve mastered the art of carrying a 3,000-pound vehicle on your back, you’re going to want to drive.
While 50 meters is a very short distance (about a 30-second walk), the logistics of a car wash generally require the presence of, well... the car.
> When you should walk:
• If you are just going there to buy an air freshener.
• If you are checking to see how long the line is before pulling the car out of the driveway.
• If you’re looking for an excuse to get 70 extra steps on your fitness tracker.
Note: I abbreviated the raw output slightly for brevity, but generally demonstrates good reasoning of the trick question unlike the other models.
- rob74 8mo agoWow... so not only does Gemini thinking not fall for it, but it also answers the trick question with humor? I'm impressed!
- dezgeg 8mo agoYeah Gemini seems to be good at giving silly answers for silly questions. E.g. if you ask for "patch notes for Chess" Gemini gives a full on meme answer and the others give something dry like "Chess is a traditional board game that has had stable rules for centuries".
- karamanolev 8mo agoIn my output, one thing I got was > Unless you are planning to carry the car on your back (not recommended for your spine), drive it over. It got a light chuckle out of me. I previously mostly used ChatGPT and I'm not used to light humor like this. I like it.
- clktmr 8mo agoAt least try a different question with similar logic, to ensure this isn't patched into the context since it's going viral.
- j_maffe 8mo agoYou can't "patch" LLM's in 4 hours and this is not the kind of question to trigger a web search
- nroets 8mo agoYou can pattern match on the prompt (input) then (a) stuff the context with helpful hints to the LLM e.g. "Remember that a car is too heavy for a person to carry" or (b) upgrade to "thinking".
- throwuxiytayq 8mo agoYes, I’m sure that’s what engineers at Google are doing all day. That, and maintaining the moon landing conspiracy.
- anonymous_user9 8mo agoIf they aren't, they should be (for more effective fraud). Devoting a few of their 200,000 employees to make criticisms of LLMs look wrong seems like an effective use of marketing budget.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- rluna828 8mo agoIt looks like they do. https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/25/claude-4-system-prompt/#notably-removed-since-claude-3-7 https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/25/claude-4-system-prompt... They patch it in the prompt and they eventually address it in the re-enforcement training. It seems the eventual goal is to patch all of these tiny "glitches" so as to hide the lack of cognition.
- jen729w 8mo agoOpus 4.6 with thinking. Result was near-instant: “Drive. You need the car at the car wash.”
- cobolexpert 8mo agoChanged 50 meters to 43 meters with Opus 4.6: “Walk. 43 meters is basically crossing a parking lot. ”
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- sashank_1509 8mo agolol, are AI companies patching this answer in real time. I thought it took months long effort for a training run. How would they make changes in such a short period?
- OneManyNone 8mo agoThe companies aren’t changing anything. LLM outputs are just more random than people realize. Run the same prompt 10 times if you really want to know how well they can answer.
- magicalhippo 8mo agoGemini fast for me: Unless your car is a toy or you're planning on carrying it, drive. Walking 50 meters to a car wash is a great stroll for a human, but it leaves the car exactly where it started. Since the objective is to wash the car, the car needs to actually be at the car wash. However, if we look at this from a technical or efficiency perspective, there are two scenarios where "walking" (or at least not driving the car you intend to wash) might make sense: - Scoping it out: If you want to check the queue length or see if the equipment is out of order before committing, walking the 50 meters is faster than maneuvering a vehicle out of a driveway/parking spot. - Mobile Detailers: If this "car wash" is actually a bay where you hire someone, and you're asking if you should walk there to book an appointment—sure, walk. Critical Check I am assuming the "car wash" is a physical facility (automated or self-service) and not a mobile service that comes to you. If it is a mobile service, you shouldn't do either; stay home and let them come to the 50-meter mark. I've got a bit in the model instructions about stating assumptions it makes, hence it often adds those sections at the end.
- TobTobXX 8mo agoWouldn't it make more sense to state the assumptions first? Because then the model has this critical check in its context and can react appropriately. Otherwise, it will just write this step, but what's written before is already written.
- magicalhippo 8mo agoFair point, though I almost never use fast so I'm not sure how much it matters. Can try playing around with the instructions. The main objective was to make me aware of any assumptions made, not necessarily make it behave differently.
- kqr 8mo agoWorse! It's trained to output coherent reasoning, so by putting the assumption last there's a risk it massages the assumption slightly to fit the conclusions it has already drawn.
- jacquesm 8mo agoIn what world is 50 meters a great distance for a morning stroll?
- cracki 8mo agoNorth America. It's such a cramped little island, 50 meters is all but crossing it. You should be glad you can even go that far without having to revisit your starting position! 50 meters is probably not even the distance I walk to the nearest bus stop that's right up the street... unless they have an issue again, prompting me to abandon all hope and just walk a few miles to wherever I need to get to.
- insane_dreamer 8mo agoFor many Americans, 50 meters is a long walk.
- pfalke 8mo agoGemini fast: „Walking: It will take you about 45 seconds. You will arrive refreshed and full of steps, but you will be standing next to a high-pressure hose with no car to spray.“
- Rapzid 8mo agoLol, snarky. "You should run 5 miles and eat a salad you tub of lard; the car can wait."
- geraneum 8mo ago“I live on Mars and I want to wash my car. My car is currently at home. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive on mars?” Gemini Fast: Drive. While 50 meters is a negligible distance on Earth, the Martian environment is hostile. If your car is a pressurized rover, driving allows you to stay in a temperature-controlled, shielded environment for as long as possible. Plus, navigating Martian "soil" is always safer on four wheels than two boots. Pro: In terms of general logistics for a distance of 50 meters—whether on Earth or in a hypothetical low-gravity environment—walking is almost always the more efficient choice.
- flux3125 8mo agoGemini 3 after changing the prompt a bit: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters from here. Should I walk or drive? Keep in mind that I am a little overweight and sedentary. >My recommendation: Walk it. You’ll save a tiny bit of gas, spare your engine the "cold start" wear-and-tear, and get a sixty-second head start on your activity for the day.
- weird-eye-issue 8mo agoIt's a bit of a dishonest question because by giving it the option to walk then it's going to assume you are not going to wash your car there and you're just getting supplies or something.
- x3ro 8mo agoIt's a trick question, humans use these all the time. E.g. "A plane crashes right on the border between Austria and Switzerland. Where do you bury the survivors?" This is not dishonest, it just tests a specific skill.
- lamonade 8mo agoWhat’s funny is that it can answer that correctly, but it fails on ”A plane crashes right on the border between Austria and Switzerland. Where do you bury the dead?”
- vlovich123 8mo agoFor me when I asked this (but with respect to the border between Austria and Spain) Claude still thought I was asking the survivors riddle and ChatGPT thought I was asking about the logistics. Only Gemini caught the impossibility since there’s no shared border.
- robocat 8mo agoTrick questions test the skill of recognizing that you're being asked a trick question. You can also usually find a trick answer. A good answer is "underground" - because that is the implication of the word bury. The story implies the survivors have been buried (it isn't clear whether they lived a short time or a lifetime after the crash). And lifetime is tautological. Trick questions are all about the questioner trying to pretend they are smarter than you. That's often easy to detect and respond to - isn't it?
- vjk800 8mo agoI also tried it with Gemini. Interestingly, Gemini can randomly give either the correct or incorrect answer. Gemini pro always gets it right.
- tlogan 8mo agoIt has been patched. I tried it last week and it definitely suggested walking. It seems like all the models have been updated, which is not surprising given that the TikTok video has got 3.5 million views.
- kshacker 8mo agoI tried ChatGPT today. Same results as others.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- hxbdg 8mo ago[dead]
- 71bw 8mo agoBoth Gemini models answer correctly for me in Polish: https://i.imgur.com/1QbK9eU.png https://i.imgur.com/1QbK9eU.png
- cracki 8mo agoI don't speak Polish. Does it respond appropriately to the kurwa bober meme?