Show HN: ChatGPT cannot do simple math
User Please aggregate the numbers
ChatGPT I apologize, but I would require more context to understand what you mean by "aggregate the numbers". Could you please provide me with more details or specific instructions on what you would like me to do?
User Please aggregate the numbers
12 rug 10 rug 10 brød 8 store toast 14 brød 12 rug 8 store toast 10 brød 10 rug 6 brød 6 rug 4 store toast 8 snurre 8 snurre 8 brød 10 rug 10 brød 10 rug 8 rug 8 brød 8 store toast 8 snurre 10 små toast 10 brød 10 rug 10 snurre 10 rug 10 brød 10 rug 11 brød 8 snurre 8 store toast 10 brød 10 rug 8 store toast 10 brød 10 rug
ChatGPT If I understand correctly, you would like me to add up the numbers in this list. However, I noticed that some of the items in the list have words associated with them (e.g. "rug", "brød", "store toast", "små toast", and "snurre"). Can you please provide more context or clarification on what these words represent and how they relate to the numbers in the list?
User They are categories.
ChatGPT Thank you for the clarification. In that case, to aggregate the numbers by category, I will sum up the numbers associated with each category. Here are the results:
rug: 82 brød: 119 store toast: 28 små toast: 10 snurre: 40
Please note that these are the sums of the numbers in the list that are associated with each category. If there are additional categories or if some numbers should be excluded from the calculation for any reason, please let me know and I will adjust the results accordingly.
User:
Go back to school.
It seems ok if you ask the right way E.g
Can you repeat this where you show your logic to aggregate them and show your thinking
12 rug 10 rug 10 brød 8 store toast 14 brød 12 rug 8 store toast 10 brød 10 rug 6 brød 6 rug 4 store toast 8 snurre 8 snurre 8 brød 10 rug 10 brød 10 rug 8 rug 8 brød 8 store toast 8 snurre 10 små toast 10 brød 10 rug 10 snurre 10 rug 10 brød 10 rug 11 brød 8 snurre 8 store toast 10 brød 10 rug 8 store toast 10 brød 10 rug
It looks like you have given me a list of food items and their quantities. To aggregate them and show my thinking, I would first group the items by type (e.g. rug, brød, store toast, etc.). Then, I would sum the quantities for each type to get the total quantity of that type of food.
For example, for the rug type:
12 rug
10 rug
12 rug
6 rug
10 rug
10 rug
8 rug
10 rug
10 rug
The total quantity of rug would be 88.
Similarly, for the brød type:
10 brød
14 brød
10 brød
6 brød
10 brød
10 brød
8 brød
10 brød
10 brød
11 brød
10 brød
10 brød
8 brød
The total quantity of brød would be 117.
I would repeat this process for each type of food, resulting in a list of total quantities for each type.
As Math's is established as an issue with LLM's. This tactic is chain of thought prompting and improves results where Maths is involved
This is a well documented problem with all language models.
ChatGPT with the Wolfram Alpha plugin can do math. That’s good enough for me.
Isn’t this pretty well known? The current advice seems to be use ChatGPT to extract data from fuzzy lists and transform it into structured data. Then use traditional methods on that data.
If arithmetic were a language skill I would agree. It isn't.