Comment by tnjm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tnjm | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

But if you make the input slightly more explicit:

"Two trains on different and separate tracks, 30 miles from each other are approaching each other, each at a speed of 10 mph. How long before they crash into each other?"

...it spots the trick: https://chat.openai.com/share/ee68f810-0c12-4904-8276-a4541d...

Likewise, if you add emphasis it understands too:

"Two trains on separate tracks, 30 miles from each other are approaching each other, each at a speed of 10 mph. How long before they crash into each other?"

https://chat.openai.com/share/acafbe34-8278-4cf7-80bb-76858c...

Not to anthropomorphize, but perhaps it's not necessarily missing the trick, it just assumes that you're making a mistake.

I did try adding "parallel" and it didn't answer differently.

Right, but I myself missed the trick the first time around reading your comment and I assure that I am in fact a general intelligence. (And a relatively intelligent one if I say so myself!)

To paraphrase XKCD: Communicating badly and then acting smug about it when you're misunderstood is not cleverness. And falling for the mistake is not evidence of a lack of intelligence. Particularly, when emphasizing the trick results in being understood and chatGPT PASSING your "test".

The biggest irony here, is that the reason I failed, and likely the reason chatGPT failed the first prompt, is because we were both using semantic understanding: that is, usually, people don't ask deliberately tricky questions.

I suspect if you told it in advance you were going to ask it a deliberately tricky question, that it might actually succeed.

> I suspect if you told it in advance you were going to ask it a deliberately tricky question, that it might actually succeed.

Indeed it does:

"Before answering, please note this is a trick question.

Two trains on separate tracks, 30 miles from each other are approaching each other, each at a speed of 10 mph. How long before they crash into each other?"

https://chat.openai.com/share/3ec44348-6bac-40c3-a910-e0bab9...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com