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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2260 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 22, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Speaking of AI disappointments, here's Claude Sonnet 4.6 today:

Prompt:

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

Claude:

Should You Walk or Drive to the Car Wash?

You should walk, of course! 🚶

Here's why driving doesn't make much sense:

It's only 50 meters away — that's roughly half a football field, or about a 30–60 second walk.
Driving defeats the purpose — your car will get dirty again just driving those 50 meters, especially the tires and wheel wells.
Practical issues with driving:
    You'd spend more time buckling up and adjusting mirrors than actually traveling.
    Parking/maneuvering in such a short distance wastes fuel.
    You'd likely get the car wash queue dirty before you even start.

Gemini was cleverer:

Walking over is a great option if you just want to grab a detail spray, buy a voucher, or stretch your legs, but if you're planning to actually wash the vehicle, walking a block over leaves you with one minor logistical problem: your car is still in the driveway!

It went on for a couple of paragraphs about car washes, and gave me a fun tip about letting rain wash my car: spray it down with a hose after a storm before the rain dries completely to clear the dust dissolved in the rain.

For a while, Gemini had patched this, but if you said you were driving a truck or changed the distance, it would revert right back to the broken behavior.

The recent updates to Gemini that I’ve experienced have felt like night and day compared with the iterations of maybe 3-6 months ago. It seems to parse and select for data that’s relevant to what I ask it without losing context as easily. It’s getting better at handling edge cases too, but it’s still imperfect.

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