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turnip_burrito t1_jdsninw wrote

Reply to comment by Cryptizard in Why is maths so hard for LLMs? by RadioFreeAmerika

Why even point this out?

If you reread my reply, you would see I said "exactly right OR right to 4 or 7 sig figs". I didn't say 4 or 7 sig figs was exactly right. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just misread the reply.

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Cryptizard t1_jdsooyh wrote

I'm sorry, from my perspective here is how our conversation went:

You: GPT4 is really good at arithmetic.

Me: It's not though, it gets multiplication wrong for any number with more than a few digits.

You: I tried it a bunch and it gets it the first few numbers right.

Me: Yeah but the first few numbers right is not right. It is wrong. Like I said.

You can't claim you are good at math if you only get a few significant digits of a calculation right. That is not good at math. It is bad at math. I feel like I am taking crazy pills.

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turnip_burrito t1_jdspnv6 wrote

It's good at math, it just has a rounded answer.

Most of the time it was actually absurdly accurate (0.0000001% error), and the 4 sig fig rounding only happened once or twice.

It is technically wrong. But so is a calculator's answer. The calculator cannot give an exact decimal representation either. So is it bad at math?

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Cryptizard t1_jdsq1sy wrote

No, I'm sorry, you are confused my dude. Give two 6 digit numbers to multiply and it only gets the first 3-4 digits correct. That is .1-1% error. I just did it 10 times and it is the same every time.

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turnip_burrito t1_jdsqq3f wrote

I just tried a couple times now and you're right. That's weird.

When I tried these things about a week and a half ago, it did have the performance I found. Either I got lucky or something changed.

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