Ok, you have a moderately complex math problem you needed to solve. You gave the problem to 6 LLMS all paid versions. All 6 get the same numbers. Would you trust the answer?
I’ve used LLMs quite a few times to find partial derivatives / gradient functions for me, and I know it’s correct because I plug them into a gradient descent algorithm and it works. I would never trust anything an LLM gives blindly no matter how advanced it is, but in this particular case I could actually test the output since it’s something I was implementing in an algorithm, so if it didn’t work I would know immediately.
That’s rad, dude. I wish I knew how to do that. Hey, dude I imagined a cosmological model that fits the data with two fewer parameters then the standard model. Planke data. I I’ve checked the numbers, but I don’t have the credentials. I need somebody to check it out. This is a it and a verbal explanation for the model by Academia.edu. It’s way easier to listen first before looking. I don’t want recognition or anything. Just for someone to review it. It’s a short paper. https://youtu.be/_l8SHVeua1Y
Nope, language models by inherent nature, xannot be used to calculate. Sure theoretically you could have input parsed, with proper training, to find specific variables, input those to a database and have that data mathematically transformed back into language data.
No LLMs do actual math, they only produce the most likely output to a given input based on trained data. If I input: What is 1 plus 1?
Then given the model, most likely has trained repetition on an answer to follow that being 1 + 1 = 2, that will be the output. If it was trained on data that was 1 + 1 = 5, then that would be the output.
Just use Wolfram Alpha instead
Well, I wanted to know the answer and formula for future value of a present amount. The AI answer that came up was clear, concise, and thorough. I was impressed and put the formula into my spreadsheet. My answer did not match the AI answer. So I kept looking for what I did wrong. Finally I just put the value into a regular online calculator and it matched the answer my spreadsheet was returning.
So AI gave me the right equation and the wrong answer. But it did it in a very impressive way. This is why I think it’s important for AI to only be used as a tool and not a replacement for knowledge. You have to be able to understand how to check the results.
Here’s an interesting post that gives a pretty good quick summary of when an LLM may be a good tool.
Here’s one key:
Machine learning is amazing if:
- The problem is too hard to write a rule-based system for or the requirements change sufficiently quickly that it isn’t worth writing such a thing and,
- The value of a correct answer is much higher than the cost of an incorrect answer.
The second of these is really important.
So if your math problem is unsolvable by conventional tools, or sufficiently complex that designing an expression is more effort than the answer is worth… AND ALSO it’s more valuable to have an answer than it is to have a correct answer (there is no real cost for being wrong), THEN go ahead and trust it.
If it is important that the answer is correct, or if another tool can be used, then you’re better off without the LLM.
The bottom line is that the LLM is not making a calculation. It could end up with the right answer. Different models could end up with the same answer. It’s very unclear how much underlying technology is shared between models anyway.
For example, if the problem is something like, "here is all of our sales data and market indicators for the past 5 years. Project how much of each product we should stock in the next quarter. " Sure, an LLM may be appropriately close to a professional analysis.
If the problem is like “given these bridge schematics, what grade steel do we need in the central pylon?” Then, well, you are probably going to be testifying in front of congress one day.
short answer: no.
Long Answer: They are still (mostly) statisics based and can’t do real math. You can use the answers from LLMs as starting point, but you have to rigerously verify the answers they give.
The whole “two r’s in strawberry” thing is enough of an argument for me. If things like that happen at such a low level, its completely impossible that it wont make mistakes with problems that are exponentially more complicated than that.
The problem with that is that it isn’t actually counting the R’s.
You’d probably have better luck asking it to write a script for you that returns the number of instances of a letter in a string of text, then getting it to explain to you how to get it running and how it works. You’d get the answer that way, and also then have a script that could count almost any character and text of almost any size.
That’s much more complicated, impressive, and useful, imo.
A calculator as a tool to a llm though, that works, at least mostly, and could be better when kinks get worked out.
Yes, with absolute certainty.
For example: 2 + 2 = 5
It’s absolutely correct and if you dispute it, big bro is gonna have to re-educated you on that.
I NEED TO consult every LLM VIA TELEKINESIS QUANTUM ELECTRIC GRAVITY A AND B WAVE.
LLMs don’t and can’t do math. They don’t calculate anything, that’s just not how they work. Instead, they do this:
2 + 2 =? What comes after that? Oh, I remember! It’s ‘4’!It could be right, it could be wrong. If there’s enough pattern in the training data, it could remember the correct answer. Otherwise it’ll just place a plausible looking value there (behavior known as AI hallucination). So, you can not “trust” it.
A good one will interpret what you are asking and then write code, often python I notice, and then let that do the math and return the answer. A math problem should use a math engine and that’s how it gets around it.
But really why bother, go ask wolfram alpha or just write the math problem in code yourself.
Every LLM answer is a hallucination.
Some are just realistic to the point of being correct. It frightens me how many users have no idea about any of that.
They don’t calculate anything
They calculate the statistical probability of the next token in an array of previous tokens
For practice yeah as there is usually something you can do to verify the value. For study no as you would not learn shit.
Most LLM’s now call functions in the background. Most calculations are just simple Python expressions.
Yes. I was aware of that, but I was manipulated by an analog device
Would you trust six mathematicians who claimed to have solved a problem by intuition, but couldn’t prove it?
That’s not how mathematics works—if you have to “trust” the answer, it isn’t even math.
Why would I bother?
Calculators exist, logic exists, so no… LLMs are a laughably bad fit for directly doing math, they are bullshit engines they cannot “store” a value without fundamentally exposing it to hallucinating tendencies which is the worst property a calculator could possibly have.
It was about all six models getting the same answer from different accounts. I was testing it. Over a hundred each same numbers
Right so because LLMs are attrocious at actually precisely carrying out logic operations the solution was likely to just throw a normal calculator inside the AI, make the AI use the calculator and then turn around and handwave that the entire thing is AI.
So… you could just skip the bullshit and use a calculator, the AI just repackages the same answer with more boilerplate bullshit.
Wolfram Alpha is the non-bullshit version of this.
Irrelevant.
LLMs are incapable of reasoning. At the core level, it is a physical impossibility.
No, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Really all six models. ? Likely incorrect?
That wasn’t the question. The question was whether you should trust the number and the answer is no. It could be correct or it could be incorrect. There’s not enough data to determine it.
LLMs work as predictive models. If you ask 10 people to estimate the height of a tree, and 8/10 estimate that it’s 10 ft tall, 2/10 estimate that it’s 8 ft tall, the most likely LLM answer is that it’s 10 ft tall. It doesn’t matter that if you actually go and measure the tree that it’s actually 15 ft tall. The LLM will likely report 8
No because there is randomness involved
That’s why you ask 6 of them, and of they all come to the same conclusion then chances are it’s either right, or a common pitfall.
I wouldn’t bother. If I really had to ask a bot, Wolfram Alpha is there as long as I can ask it without an AI meddling with my question.
E: To clarify, just because one AI or six will get the same answer that I can independently verify as correct for a simpler question, does not mean I can trust it for any arbitrary math question even if however many AIs arrive at the same answer. There’s often the possibility the AI will stumble upon a logical flaw, exemplified by the “number of rs in strawberry” example.
