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The onus is on you to verify what the LLM outputs, not for us to do it. Anyone can query an LLM, the only thing that makes such output valuable is when a human fact checks it.
I'm the most rabid anti AI luddide on this forum and I can tell you that LLMs can do perfect basic arithmetic.
I'm ready to wager $50 right now that you can't demonstrate a single example of gpt 5.x, gemini pro 3.x, claude opus 4.x making an error of more than 10% of basic arithmetic (plus minus multiply divide) for any 2 numbers up to 10^10. Just share the chat link and I will PP you the money.
Justification for 10% margin: since we are talking back of the envelope calculation, a trivial error does not change the answer
Not that I am not asking for the latest models, but I am ruling out cost optimized models (gpt mini, gemini flash) as they are intentionally compromising capability heavily to lower cost.
I don't disagree that LLMs can do basic arithmetic. That doesn't change my stance. I think it's no different than if you somehow knew a gifted savant human who could do 99% of things well 99% of the time, but failed miserably at the 1%. I am fine with you asking this human to do a back of the envelope calculation. I am not fine with you just uncritically repeating what they say without checking it. Especially when it's a back of the envelope calculation, as you say. It's no different with LLMs. I think the major problem with LLMs is not that they exist and could hallucinate, but that it enables a lot of people who reach for the easy button and just press it without thinking for themselves. They can and should check everything being told to them. They can and should do their own research. When they don't, it can lead to lies being spread. Do you know why a lie can make it halfway across the world while the truth is putting its boots on? Because people don't check for themselves, they don't think for themselves, they just hear what someone else says and repeat it. A lot of people have replaced that someone else with an LLM.
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If you can avoid the tool calls, you can still get multiplication-of-decimal errors, but it is increasingly rare. That said, I'd be more concerned about the problem being under-specified; the same question asked a different way gets a different answer.
EDIT: I make no claims about the politics, here, which I'd expect to have larger impact.
Hmm I assumed it would be usd because that's what the reuters mentioned. (That's a problem with my human meat not the robot though)
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