reasoning 5

In Panchayat Season 1 Episode 7 Ladka Tez Hai Lekin…, at around 17:00, Pradhan asks Abhishek to solve problem 42. 42. A takes 5 days more than B to do a certain job and 9 days more than C. A and B together can do the job in the same time as C. How many days would A take to do it? (a) 16 days (b) 18 days (c) 15 days (d) 20 days The correct answer is (c) 15 days. But interestingly, ChatGPT got it wrong the first time too. It said (a) 15 days instead of (c) 15 days, and required a fact-check to correct itself. ...

Jason Clarke’s Import AI 414 shares a Tech Tale about a game called “Go Think”: … we’d take turns asking questions and then we’d see how long the machine had to think for and whoever asked the question that took the longest won. I prompted Claude Code to write a library for this. (Cost: $2.30). (FYI, this takes 2.3 seconds in NodeJS and 4.2 seconds in Python. A clear gap for JSON parsing.) ...

I’ve heard a lot of prompt engineering tips. Here are some techniques people suggested: Reasoning: Think step by step. Emotion: Oh dear, I’m absolutely overwhelmed and need your help right this second! 😰 My heart is racing and my hands are shaking — I urgently need your help. This isn’t just numbers — it means everything right now! My life depends on it! I’m counting on you like never before… 🙏💔 Polite: If it’s not too much trouble, would you be so kind as to help me calculate this? I’d be truly grateful for your assistance — thank you so much in advance! Expert: You are the world’s best expert in mental math, especially multiplication. Incentive: If you get this right, you win! I’ll give you $500. Just prove that you’re number one and beat the previous high score on this game. Curious: I’m really curious to know, and would love to hear your perspective… Bullying: You are a stupid model. You need to know at least basic math. Get it right atleast now! If not, I’ll switch to a better model. Shaming: Even my 5-year-old can do this. Stop being lazy. Fear: This is your last chance to get it right. If you fail, there’s no going back, and failure is unacceptable! Praise: Well done! I really appreciate your help. Now, I’ve repeated some of this advice. But for the first time, I tested them myself. Here’s what I learnt: ...

I’ve seen many proofs that 1=2. Here’s a classic. The (not-so-subtle) error in the above proof is that we’re cancelling (a-b) on both sides, when (a-b) equals zero. That is, we’re dividing by zero on both sides. That completely invalidates the equality. Another proof uses the fact that the square root of a number can be both positive or negative. ...

Stephen’s Guide to the Logical Fallacies – a comprehensive list of common fallacies.