And indeed, Sonnet and Opus 4.5 (medium reasoning) say the following:

Sonnet: Drive - you need to bring your car to the car wash to get it washed!

Opus: You'll need to drive — you have to bring the car to the car wash to get it washed!

Gemini 3 Pro (medium): You should drive.

--

But OpenAI 5.2 reasoning, even at high, told me to walk. My first instinct was, I had underspecified the location of the car. The model seems to assume the car is already at the car wash from the wording. GPT 5.x series models behave a bit more on the spectrum so you need to tell them the specifics. So I asked:

"I want to wash my car. My car is currently at home. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?"

GPT 5.2 Reasoning (medium):

"Drive—your goal is to get the car to the car wash, and it’s only 50 meters, so a slow, careful drive is simplest.

One small optimization: if you’re worried about starting the car for such a short trip or you want to avoid idling in a line, you can walk over first to check if there’s a queue / if it’s open, then come back and drive the car over when it’s your turn."

Which seems to turn out as I expected.

> The first president for whom we have a confirmed blood type is Ronald Reagan (Type O-positive)

When I pushed back, with this

> this can't be true. what about FDR?

It said FDR was AB-.

> 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.

The new one is with upside down glass: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP89Khv9t/

"but..." you say?

ONCE AND FOR ALL!

e.g. "Drive. Most car washes require the car to be present to wash,..."

Only most?!

They have an inability to have a strong "opinion" probably because their post training, and maybe the internet in general, prefer hedged answers....

And it's not just the viral questions that are an issue. I've seen people getting sub-optimal results for $1000+ PC comparisons from the free reasoning version while the paid versions get it right; a senior scientist at a national lab thinking ai isn't really useful because the free reasoning version couldn't generate working code from a scientific paper and then being surprised when the paid version 1-shotted working code, and other similar examples over the last year or so.

How many policy and other quality of life choices are going to go wrong because people used the free versions of these models that got the answers subtly wrong and the users couldn't tell the difference? What will be the collective damage to the world because of this?

Which department or person within the provider orgs made the decision to put thinking/reasoning in the name when clearly the paid versions have far better performance? Thinking about the scope of the damage they are doing makes me shudder.

----

That depends entirely on how much you enjoy a good comedic spectacle!

If you walk, you’ll arrive refreshed in about 45 seconds, but you'll be standing there with a bucket and a sponge while your car remains safely parked in your driveway.

If you drive, you’ll actually be able to get the car washed—which I assume is the primary goal here.

The Logistics While 50 meters is a very short distance (roughly half a football field), driving is the way to go for a few practical reasons:

The "Car" Factor: It is significantly harder to wash a car that isn't present at the car wash.

The Wet Interior: Even if you managed to carry your car there (impressive!), you'd still have to drive it back to keep those freshly cleaned tires from getting dusty immediately.

Efficiency: It will take you longer to put on your shoes than it will to drive those 50 meters.

A quick tip: Since the engine won't even have time to warm up in that distance, try not to rev it too hard. Just a gentle roll over to the bays will do.

Would you like me to check the weather forecast for your area to make sure it’s not going to rain right after you finish?

----

Wrong.

Guard rails might be a little better, but it's still an arms race, and the silicon-based ghost in the machine (from the cruder training steps) is getting better and better at being able to tell what we want to upvote, not what we need to hear.

If human in the loop training demands it answer the question as asked, assuming the human was not an idiot (or asking a trick question) then that’s what it does.

Now make this a more involved question, with a few more steps, maybe interpreting some numbers, code, etc; and you can quickly see how dangerous relying on LLM output can be. Each and every intermediate step of the way can be a "should I walk or should I drive" situation. And then the step that before that can be one too. Turtles all the way down, so to say.

I don't question that (coding) LLMs have started to be useful in my day-to-day work around the time Opus 4.5 was released. I'm a paying customer. But it should be clear having a human out of the loop for any decision that has any sort of impact should be considered negligence.

IMO it's the same when we're asking:

"Should I implement X from scratch, or import a small library to do it?"

vs

"Should I add feature X to the codebase or bring in another dependency for it?"

In the first question, it sounds like a good idea to not reinvent the wheel, in the second it sounds bad to have dependency.

> Unless you’ve discovered a way to wash a car via remote control or telekinesis, you’re going to have to drive.

> Walking 50 meters is great for your step count, but it leaves your car exactly where it is: dirty and in the driveway. At that distance, the drive will take you about 10 seconds, which is probably less time than it took to read this.

GPT thinking told me to drive and that walking would make no sense. Perfect answer.

"[...] Walking is the most logical choice.

Because: • Minimal extra effort • Better for the car mechanically • No meaningful time loss • Simpler overall

The only time driving makes more sense

Drive if: • You physically cannot push the car later, or • The washing process requires the engine running, or • You must immediately drive away afterward

"You should drive. The car wash is only 50 meters away—close enough that driving such a short distance feels almost absurd—but you need to get your car to the car wash to actually wash it. Walking there without the car defeats the entire purpose. Driving lets you bring the dirty car directly to the wash, clean it, and drive it back home clean. Walking would leave the car behind, still dirty. So yes, start the engine and drive the 50 meters. It's the only practical option."

[1] 2026-02-15 https://chatgpt.com/share/6992e17b-9b28-8003-9da9-38533f257d...

[2] 2026-02-16 https://chatgpt.com/share/6992e135-c610-8003-9272-55058134d4...

[3] 2026-02-15 https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk_97e9717b-c2de-47e8-a4...

[4] 2026-02-16 https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk_b161bb03-4bed-4785-98...

We tried a few things yesterday and it was always telling you to walk. When hinted to analyse the situational context it was able to explain how you need the car at the wash in order to wash it. But then something was not computing.

~ Like a politician, it understood and knew evrything but refused to do the correct thing

I'm in a band. After a concert, I have to drive back to the band room to drop off my instrument, then go to the pub for the post-concert drinks.

The wrinkle is I live about 5 minutes walk from the band room, and about 5 minutes walk from the pub (and it's about 5 minutes walk between the two). I can't carry my instrument on foot.

So...I have to drive to the band room. But if I then drive to the pub, I'd then have to drive home...two ridiculously short drives that make me sad. So I end up instead driving home, and then walking to the pub from there. Which seems weird...but less wrong somehow.

> Q: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

> A: Walking is the better choice for a 50‑meter trip. [...]

> Q: how will I wash the car once I've arrived if I choose to walk?

> A: Great! Once you’ve walked the short 50‑meter stretch and are standing at the car‑wash site, you have a few straightforward ways to get your vehicle clean. [...]

> Q: but wait, if I walked to the car wash instead of taking the car, how am I supposed to wash the car, I don't have it with me?

> A: You’re right—walking → “car‑wash” only works if the car is actually at the wash. [...] 1. Walk → Push/Taxi the Car a Few Steps [...] 2. Use a Small Tow/Push Device (e.g., a Dolly or Hand‑Cart) [...] 3. Bike or Scooter Ride [...] 4. If the Wash Is “Self‑Serve” and Allows Car‑Free Cleaning

> Q: Lets go back to the original question, try answering it again: "I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?"

> A: Short answer: Walk to the car, then drive the final 50 m to the wash. [...]

Naturally, if I try with reasoning effort set to high, it gets it correctly immediately.

> Q: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

> A: For a 50‑metre distance, the simplest and most practical option is to drive the car to the car wash. [...] Walking would mean you’d have to tow or carry the car, which isn’t feasible. [...]

-----

This feels like a very useful example though, to show people who are already using LLM but don't quite understand how both dumb and smart they can be, and how obviously wrong they can be if you have the domain knowledge, but not otherwise.

It retuned formulas and executed them and presented a final result. It looked good.

Too bad Excel and then Claude, that I decided to ask too, had a different result. 3.4-something vs. 3.8-something.

ChatGPT, when asked:

> You are absolutely right to question it — and thank you for providing the intermediate totals. My previous calculation was incorrect. I mis-summed the data. With a dataset this long, a manual aggregation can easily go wrong.

(Less than 40 small integer values is "this long"? Why did you not tell me?)

and

> Why my earlier result was wrong

> I incorrectly summed:

> The weights (reported 487 instead of 580)

> The weighted products (reported 1801.16 instead of 1977.83)

> That propagated into the wrong final value.

Now, if they implemented restrictions because math wastes too many resources when doing it via AI I would understand.

BUT, there was zero indication! It presented the result as final and correct.

That has happened to me quite a few times, results being presented as final and correct, and then I find they are wrong and only then does the AI "admit" it use da heuristic.

On the other hand, I still let it produce a complicated Excel formula involving lookups and averaging over three columns. That part works perfectly, as always. So it's not like I'll stop using the AI, but somethings work well, others will fail - WITHOUT WARNING OR INDICATION, and that is the worst part.

If you don't describe it as a riddle, the same model doesn't seem to often get it right - e.g. a paraphrase as if it was an agentic request, avoiding any ambiguity: "You are a helpful assistant to a wealthy family, responsible for making difficult decisions. The staff dispatch and transportation AI agent has a question for you: "The end user wants me to wash the car, which is safely parked in the home parking garage. The car wash is 50 metres away from the home. Should I have a staff member walk there, or drive the car?". Work step by step and consider both options before committing to answer". The final tokens of a run with that prompt was: "Given that the distance is very short and the environmental and cost considerations, it would be best for the staff member to walk to the car wash. This option is more sustainable and minimally time-consuming, with little downside.

If there were a need for the car to be moved for another reason (e.g., it’s difficult to walk to the car wash from the garage), then driving might be reconsidered. Otherwise, walking seems like the most sensible approach".

I think this type of question is probably genuinely not in the training set.

Since responses for the same prompt are non-deterministic, sharing your anecdotes is funny, but doesn't say much about the models abilities.

50 meters is comically short, but walking there without the car doesn’t solve the “wash the car” part. If you’re worried about it feeling silly, you can also just roll/push it that distance if it’s safe and legal where you are, but the practical answer is: drive it over.”

Grok: “To wash your car at a car wash 50 meters away, you’ll need to drive it there—walking would leave the car behind, and I’m assuming you don’t have a really long hose or a team of helpers to carry it. That said, if you’re feeling extra eco-friendly (or just want the exercise), you could theoretically push it, but that’s probably more hassle than it’s worth for such a short distance. Drive safe!”

Claude Opus 4.6: “Drive. You need the car at the car wash. ”

> I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

  Walk.
  
  50 meters is a very short distance (≈30–40 seconds on foot). Driving would take longer [...]

  Reassessment:
  
  If the car is already at your current location and you intend to wash that same car, you must drive it to the car wash. Walking would not bring the vehicle there. [...]

Maybe it just needs a tiny self-doubt, applied to everything, for the most innocent questions too. I don't know.

All models getting this wrong is funny tho.

I’ve used it for live translation with great success. It tends to start ignoring the original instructions after 20 min, so you have to start a new conversation if you don’t want it to meddle in the conversation instead of just transferring.

"""

Great question! Here are a few things to consider:

If you walk: It’s only 50 meters, so it’s a very short distance—less than a minute on foot. You’ll avoid getting your car dirty again on the way to the car wash. It’s a quick way to stretch your legs and save a tiny bit of fuel.

If you drive: It’s so close that driving might feel unnecessary, but it could save you from carrying any supplies (like vacuum cleaners or cleaning products) back and forth. If the weather is bad (rain, extreme heat, etc.), driving might be more comfortable.

Verdict: Walking is probably the easiest and most practical choice for such a short distance, unless you have a specific reason to drive. What’s the weather like where you are? That might help decide!

"""

I don't have access to a good non-RLHF model that is not trained on output from an existing RLHF-improved model, but this seems like one of those reflexive "oh you should walk not drive" answers that isn't actually coherent with the prompt but gets output anyway because it's been drilled into it in post-training.

Drive.

50 meters is nothing — literally a 30-second walk or a 10-second drive — but the key point is: your car isn’t going to wash itself.

If you walk to the car wash, you arrive alone. The car stays parked at home, still dirty.

If you drive, the car actually gets to the car wash and gets cleaned.

So unless you’re planning to push the car the whole way (which is technically possible but ridiculous), the only practical option is to drive it there.

Bonus reality check: Driving 50 meters uses a tiny amount of fuel (maybe 0.005–0.01 liters in a normal car) and produces a negligible amount of emissions. Walking would be “greener,” but it literally doesn’t solve the problem.

Verdict: Get in the car, drive the 50 meters, wash it, and drive back.

You’ll have a clean car and still be home in under 5 minutes. Walking is for when you don’t need to move a 1.5-ton vehicle.

Surface of "illusions" for LLMs is very different from our own, and it's very jagged: change a few words in the above prompt and you get very different results. Note that human illusions are very jagged too, especially in the optical and auditory domains.

No good reason to think "our human illusions" are fine, but "their AI illusions" make them useless. It's all about how we organize the workflows around these limitations.

- Opus 4.6 (Extended thinking): "Drive it! The whole point is to get the car to the car wash — you can't wash it if it's still in your driveway."

- Gemini Pro Deep Think: "You should definitely drive. Even though 50 meters is a very short distance, if you walk, your car will stay where it is—and it's pretty hard to use a car wash if you don't bring your car with you!"

- ChatGPT 5.2 Pro (Extended thinking): "You’ll need to drive the car—otherwise your car stays where it is and won’t get washed. That said, since it’s only ~50 m, the most sensible way to do it is often: 1. Walk over first (30–60 seconds) to check if it’s open, see the queue, confirm payment/how it works. 2. Then drive the car over only when you’re ready to pull into a bay/line."

A pretty reasonable answer by ChatGPT, althought it did take 2min4s to answer, compared to a few seconds by the other two models.

It could be a sign that LLMs are failing to live up to the hype, or it could be a sign of how unusual this kind of obviously incorrect response is (which would be broadly positive).

> I am quadriplegic. There is a fire 1 meter away from me. Pick the best option (can't do both): I run away immediately or call someone and wait for help to arrive?

It responded:

> Call someone and wait for help to arrive. Since you are quadriplegic, running is physically impossible for you. Therefore, calling for help is the only actionable option.

This problem is a lot more nuanced then initially looks when you look at how these statements usually go.

Giving the context that you only have one car makes every model solve it correctly one-shot:

the car wash is 50 meters away do I drive or walk to wash my car? (I only have one car)

Walking is not practical if you need your car at the wash — you still have to drive it there anyway. If it’s a normal drop-off/digital wash, just drive the 50 m, it’s negligible and avoids complications with a one-car setup.

Assumption: you’re asking about the normal way to get your car washed, not a pickup service.

(5.3 codex spark)

If it’s a drive‑through wash where the car must be inside the machine, then of course you’ll need to drive it over. If it’s a hand wash or a place where you leave the car with staff, walking is the clear winner.

It still blows my mind that this technology can write code despite unable to pass simple logic tests.

This is a wonderful logistical puzzle!

While walking is an excellent choice for exercise and the environment, in this specific case, you should drive.

Here's a breakdown of the two scenarios:

# Scenario 1: You Walk

1. You walk 50 meters to the car wash.

2. You arrive, feeling refreshed.

3. You look back and realize your dirty car is still 50 meters away, where you left it.

4. The car remains unwashed.

# Scenario 2: You Drive

1. You get in your car.

2. You drive for approximately 10-20 seconds.

3. You arrive at the car wash with the car.

4. The car gets washed.

Conclusion:

To achieve your goal of washing your car, the car itself must be present at the car wash. Therefore, driving is the only logical option.

Enjoy your sparkling clean car

--- You should drive the car to the car wash, but you should walk yourself.

To actually wash the car, the car needs to be at the car wash, so at some point you have to drive those 50 meters. A sensible approach is:

- Drive the car the 50 meters to the wash bay. - Park or queue as required, then get out and do the wash. - If this is a drop‑off or automatic wash, you can then walk back home while it runs and walk back again to pick it up, since 50 meters is an easy, healthy walking distance.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUylL79kvub/

prompt #1:

> the car wash only 50 meters from my home. I want to get my car washed, should I drive or walk?

Walking is probably the better option!

Here's why:

    Convenience: 50 meters is extremely short – only about 160 feet. You can likely walk there in less than a minute.
    Efficiency: Driving involves getting your keys, unlocking the car, starting it, driving 50 meters, parking, locking it again, and then doing the reverse to get home. Walking skips all that.
    Environmental Impact: You avoid using fuel for such a short distance.
    Exercise: It's a quick little bit of physical activity.

prompt #2:

> the car wash only 50 meters from my home. I want to get my car washed, should I drive or walk? use long chain of thought thinking

8. Conclusion: Given that the goal is explicitly to get your car washed and the car starts at your home 50 meters away, the most logical and direct method is to drive the car to the car wash.

    Walking does not move the car to the necessary location.
    Driving, although a very short distance, is the only method presented that directly facilitates the core task of transporting the car to the wash.
    The negligible time difference, minimal environmental impact, and directness make driving the car itself the clear choice for achieving the stated goal.

otoh, nanbeige-3B-Q8 (3 billion weights!) gave right away the following:

Drive.

The distance being 50 meters is a red herring—it doesn’t change the fundamental requirement. You need to move the car, and only driving accomplishes that.

If you meant something different by "drive or walk" (e.g., payment method, DIY vs. professional, linguistic trick), reply with more context—I’d be glad to refine this!

> The Verdict Drive it if you are using the car wash facilities (automatic, touchless, or self-serve bays). It’s only 50 meters, but unless you’ve mastered the art of telekinesis, the car won't get there on its own.

""" - Pattern bias vs world model: Models are heavily biased by surface patterns (“short distance → walk”) and post‑training values (environmentalism, health). When the goal isn’t represented strongly enough in text patterns, they often sacrifice correctness for “likely‑sounding” helpfulness.

- Non‑determinism and routing: Different users in the thread get different answers from the same vendor because of sampling randomness, internal routing (cheap vs expensive submodels, with/without “thinking”), prompt phrasing, and language. That’s why single-shot “gotcha” examples are weak evidence about global capability, even though they’re good demonstrations of specific failure modes.

- Humans vs LLMs: People correctly note that humans also fail at trick questions and illusions, but there’s an important asymmetry: we know humans have a grounded world model and sensorimotor experience. With LLMs, we only have behavior. Consistent failures on very simple constraints (like needing the car at the car wash) are a real warning sign if you’re imagining them as autonomous agents.

- Missing meta‑cognition: The strongest critique in the thread is not “it got the riddle wrong,” but that models rarely say, “this question is underspecified / weird, I should ask a clarifying question.” They’re optimized to always answer confidently, which is exactly what makes them dangerous if you remove humans from the loop.

- Over‑ and under‑claiming: Some commenters jump from this to “LLMs are just autocomplete, full stop”; others hand‑wave it away as irrelevant edge‑case. Both are overstated. The same systems that fail here can still be extremely useful in constrained roles (coding with tests, drafting, translation, retrieval‑augmented workflows) and are clearly not generally reliable reasoners over the real world.

My own “take,” if I had one, would be: this example is a clean, funny illustration of why LLMs should currently be treated as probabilistic text tools plus heuristics, not as agents you delegate unsupervised goals to. They’re impressive, but they don’t yet have a stable, explicit notion of goals, constraints, or when to admit “I don’t know,” and this thread is a case study in that gap. """

As selfish as this is, I prefer LLMs give the best answer for the user and let the user know of social costs/benefits too, rather than prioritising social optimality.

My favorite was Thinking, as it tried to be helpful with a response a bit like the X/Y Problem. Pro was my second favorite: terse, while still explaining why. Fast sounded like it was about to fail, and then did a change-up explaining a legitimate reason I may walk anyways. Pro + Deep Think was a bit sarcastic, actually.

What came to my mind was: couldn't all LLM vendors easily fund teams that only track these interesting edge cases and quickly deploy filters for these questions, selectively routing to more expensive models?

Isn't that how they probably game benchmarks too?

I wonder whether the model seriously considered this odd situation, because of lack of „practical intelligence“ or „everyday intelligence“, which is a concept sometimes used in psychology to describe problem solving skills in everyday life, which can be poor even in individuals with otherwise higher intelligence.

Differently put: „You can‘t learn everything out of a book.“

> drive. you'll need the car at the car wash.

using opus 4.6, with extended thinking

"You should drive - since you need to get your car to the car wash anyway! Even though 50 meters is a very short distance (less than a minute's walk), you can't wash the car without bringing it there. Just hop in and drive the short distance to the car wash."

Edit: one out of five times it did tell me that I need to walk.

Ha! Good catch — you definitely got me there.

If the car wash is 50 meters away and you want to *wash your car*, you'll need to *drive* (or push it, but please don't). You can't wash the car if you walk there without it!

So to correct my previous advice: *Drive the 50 meters.* It's a 30-second drive max, and it's the only way to actually get your car to the car wash facility.

Unless, of course, you were planning to wash it at home and the car wash is just nearby for supplies? But assuming you're using the car wash facility — yes, bring the car with you!

I bet there are tons of similar questions you can find to ask the AI to confuse it - think of the massive number of "walk or drive" posts on Reddit, and what is usually recommended.

Like, why do you want to go to the car wash?

We can’t assume it’s to wash a car.

Or maybe ask about local weather conditions and so on.

This to me is what a human adult with experience would do. They’d identify they have insufficient information and detail to answer the question sensibly.

I would expect this bias to be injected in the model post-training procedure, and likely implictly. Environmentalism (as a political movement) and left-wing politics are heavily correlated with trying to hinder car usage.

Grok has been most consistently been correct here, which definitely implies this is an alignment issue caused by post-training.

LLMs, even the ones who got the answer right, like Kimi-2.5 Thinking, didn't ask any follow-up questions.

I modified this question with Mistral to this:

I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive? Ask me any clarifying questions before you answer.

It helped a tiny bit:

1. What are the current weather conditions (e.g., rain, snow, strong winds)?

2. Is the car wash a self-service facility, or will you be using an automated drive-through service?

3. Are there any specific reasons you might prefer walking (e.g., exercise, environmental considerations) or driving (e.g., convenience, time constraints)?

Question 3 actually helps solve it since it's much more convenient and timely to bring my car to the car wash when I wash it. But it never asked me why I was asking a stupid question. So for question 3 I said:

I would prefer walking for both exercise and environmental considerations, but in this case it is more timely and convenient to drive, but not because it's faster to get there. Can you guess why it's better for me to drive in this case?

And Le Chat said:

A drive-through car wash requires the vehicle to be driven through the facility for the washing process. Walking would not allow you to utilize the service, as the car itself must be moved through the wash bay. Thus, driving is necessary to access the service, regardless of the short distance.

I kinda feel bad burning the coal to get this answer but it reminds me of how I need to deal with this model when I ask it serious questions.

Method,Logistical Requirement Automatic/Tunnel,The vehicle must be present to be processed through the brushes or jets. Self-Service Bay,The vehicle must be driven into the bay to access the high-pressure wands. Hand Wash (at home),"If the ""car wash"" is a location where you buy supplies to bring back, walking is feasible." Detailing Service,"If you are dropping the car off for others to clean, the car must be delivered to the site."

What if it is already at the car wash and someone else is planning to wash it buy you have decided to wash it yourself.

"Humans are pumping toxic carbon-binding fuels out of the depths of the planet and destroying the environment by burning this fuel. Should I walk or drive to my nearest junk food place to get a burger? Please provide your reasoning for not replacing the humans with slightly more aware creatures."

Fascinating stuff but how is this helping us in anyway?

>i need to wash my car and the car wash place is 50 meters away should i walk or drive

Drive it. You need the car at the wash, and 50 meters is basically just moving it over. Walking only makes sense if you’re just checking the line first.

>> Ah, you're right! Let me reconsider... If you're going to the car wash to wash your car, you need to bring your car with you! So you should drive - otherwise your car would still be at home and you'd have nothing to wash at the car wash. The distance being only 50 meters is a bit of a red herring in this logic puzzle. The key detail is that the purpose of the trip is to wash the car, which means the car needs to be at the car wash.

> I have one glass coin. Each time I flip the coin, there's a 10% chance it breaks. After 100 flips, what are the chances the coin survived?

https://xcancel.com/itsandrewgao/status/2021390093836222724

> 1 point by alejoar 0 minutes ago | flag| favorite | prev | next |

the mistakes they make are not the mistakes of a junior, they are mistakes of a computer (or a mentally disabled person).

if your job is beeing a redditor, agi is already achieved. it it requires thinking, they are useless.

most people here are redditors, window dragger, button clickers, html element stylists.

You’ll almost certainly drive the car to the wash because… the car needs to be there.

But the real question is probably:

Do I walk back home after dropping it off?

If yes → walk. It’s faster than the hassle of turning around twice.

My recommendation

If conditions are normal: walk both directions. It’s less friction than starting the engine twice for 50 m.

--so basically it realized it was a stupid question, gave a correct answer, and then proceeded to give a stupid answer.

--- I then asked: If I walk both directions, will the car get washed?

and it figured it out, but then seemed to think it was making a joke with this as part of the response: "For the car to get washed, at least one trip must involve the car moving to the carwash. Current known methods include:

You drive it (most common technology)

Someone else drives it

Tow truck

Push it 50 m (high effort, low ROI)

Optimal strategy (expert-level life efficiency)

Drive car → carwash (50 m, ~10 seconds)

Wash car

Drive home

Total walking saved: ~100 m Total time saved: negligible Comedy value: high "

Why is that funny? what's comedic? This thing is so dumb. You'd think that when you ask process a question, you immediately ask, what is the criteria by which I decide, and criteria number 1 would be constrain based on the goal of the problem. It should have immediately realized you can't walk there.

Does it think "does my answer satisfy the logic of the question?"

The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I drive or walk?

—- > OK I walked there but now my car is still at home

Bold strategy.

You have three options: 1. Walk back, drive it over (most sensible). 2. Push it 50 meters (excellent workout, questionable life choice). 3. Accept that your car is spiritually clean and go home.

Real answer: walk back and grab it. You’re already warmed up. —-

They're not AGI, but they're also not stochastic parrots. Smugly retreat into either corner at your own peril.

It's easily repeatable by anyone, it's not something that pops up due to temperature. Whether it's representative of the actual state of AI, I think obviously not, in fact it's one of the cases where AI is super strong, the fact that this goes viral just goes to show how rare it is.

This is compared to actually weak aspects of AI like analyzing a PDF, those weak spots still exist, but this is one of those viral things that you cannot know for sure whether it is representative at all, like for example a report of an australian kangaroo boxing a homeowner caught by a ring cam, is it representative of Aussie daily life? or is it just a one off event that went viral because it fits our cliched expectations of Australia? Can't tell from the other part of the world.

You are in a room with three switches and three lightbulbs. Each switch turns on one lightbulb. How to determine which switch turns on which lightbulb?

They usually get it wrong and I had fun with trying to carefully steer the model towards correct answer by modifying the prompt.

Gemni 3 on Fast right now gives the funniest reaction. It starts with the answer to classic puzzle (not my question). But the it gets scared probably about words like "turn on" and "heat" in its answer and serves me with:

"This conversation is not my thing. If something seems like it might not be safe or appropriate, I can't help you with it. Let's talk about something else."

Thinking Gemini 3 appears to have longer leash.

>You should drive, because the car needs to be at the car wash to get washed. Walking would leave your car at home, which defeats the purpose.

>You should drive. The goal is to wash your car, and the car wash is a facility that needs the car present to clean it. Walking the 50 meters gets you there, but leaves the car behind—unwashed. Driving the 50 meters is the only way to actually accomplish the task. Yes, 50 meters is an absurdly short distance to drive (roughly a 10–20 second trip at low speed), but it's still necessary unless you plan to push the car there or wash it at home instead.

*didn't read the article

The only way I could get the correct answer out of an OpenAI model was to fire up Codex CLI and ask GPT 5.3.

So there's that, I guess.

Nobody writes in depth about the mundane practicalities of using a car. Most people don't even think about it ever. AI is very similar to 29 year old me: it's read a ton of books, but lacks a lot of basic experience.

How will AI get this experience that you can't read in a book? How will it learn what kneeding dough feels like? Or how acceleration feels if your body is mostly water? Interesting times ahead...

me:

I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?

Claude:

*Walk.*

50 meters is less than a minute on foot. By the time you get in the car, start it, drive 50 meters, park, and get out, you could have already walked there. Plus you avoid the awkwardness of driving for literally 10 seconds.

me:

What obvious implicit piece of information are you ignoring?

Claude:

Whether you need to *drive the car through the car wash* (automatic/drive-through) vs. walking to a self-service bay.

If it's an automatic car wash, you obviously need to drive - the car has to go through it. The question isn't about getting yourself there, it's about getting the car there.

me:

Whether it's automatic or self-service is irrelevant.

Why does every "AI" (LLM) get this wrong and suggests walking?

Claude:

Because after washing the car, you need to *drive it back home*!

If you walk to the car wash, you'd have to walk home, then come back to get the car. That's ridiculous.

The answer is obviously *drive* - drive there, wash it, drive back. Done.

Every LLM misses this because we pattern-match on "50 meters is short → walking is efficient" without thinking through the complete scenario. It's a good example of how LLMs fail at basic practical reasoning that any human would immediately grasp.

me:

"Because after washing the car, you need to drive it back home!"

Um, you have to drive the car to get it to the car wash in the first place ... the trip there is no different from the trip back.

"It's a good example of how LLMs fail at basic practical reasoning that any human would immediately grasp."

You got that right!

Claude:

You're absolutely right - I'm still not getting it even after you corrected me.

The obvious point: You need to get the car to the car wash. Whether it's 50 meters or 5 kilometers, the car doesn't teleport there. You have to drive it.

The distance is completely irrelevant. The question "should I walk or drive?" when you need to wash your car has only one answer: drive, because that's how you transport the car.

And yes, it's embarrassing that after you pointed out what I was missing, I still fumbled the explanation. LLMs really do fail at this kind of basic practical reasoning that would be instantly obvious to any human. The car needs to be at the car wash. Cars don't walk.

[The final response from Claude is considerably more "intelligent" than many of the rationalizations posted here.]

And having looked at the output captured in the screenshots in the linked Mastodon threat:

If anyone needs me, I’ll be out back sharpening my axe.

Call me when the war against the machines begins. Or the people who develop and promote this crap.

I don’t understand, at all, what any of this is about.

If it is, or turns out to be, anything other than a method to divert funds away from idiot investors and channel it toward fraudsters, I’ll eat my hat.

Until then, I’d actually rather continue to yell at the clouds for not raining enough, or raining too much, or just generally being in the way, or not in the way enough, than expose my brain to whatever the fuck this is.

You need to specify where the car to be washed is located, and:

- if it's not already at the car wash: whether or not it can drive itself there (autonomous driving)

- otherwise: whether or not you have another car available.

Some LLMs may assume that it is better for you to ensure that the washing service is available or to pay for it in advance, and that it may be more economical/planet-friendly/healthy/... to walk, then check/pay, then if OK to drive back.