AI can’t spell strawberry. Here’s why | TechCrunch Minute

How many times does the letter R appear in strawberry? If you ask ChatGPT, Claude, or other AI chatbots, the answer is twice. If AI can write essays in the blink of an eye, or solve equations in seconds, why is it so hard to spell? LLMs are trained on boatloads of data, but when the LLM interprets whatever we’re typing into ChatGPT, the AI isn’t really reading the words we’re typing.

This episode of the Techcrunch Minute is sponsored by Aerospace.

[skoorbstudios]

i had a conversation with Chat GPT and i convinced it that 'strawberry' has three 'r's. it was kinda a process but i basically asked it how many 'r's were in 'straw' and how many 'r's were in 'berry', and when it said 'berry' only contained one 'r', i asked it to spell out 'berry', and so when it responded with 'B-E-R-R-Y', i asked it how many 'r's were in 'B-E-R-R-Y', and it said two, so then I asked Chat GPT to confirm there were two 'r's in 'berry' and it apologized and accepted it's mistake, and now it says there are three 'r's in 'strawberry'. You're welcome people.

[tijgertalks]

Please use only your inductive reasoning to determine how many times the letter "r" appears in the word "strawberry."

[russmathis]

This approach works: SHOW EACH LETTER IN THE WORLD STRAWBERRY AND COUNT THE LETTERS R

[mydetlef]

Ask: How many times does the letter R appear in "strawberry". Gemini: Correct answer, Bing: Correct Answer, Claude and ChatGPT miss with : 2 r

[Lumen_Blasphemer]

Yeah it took me about a day to solve this paradox after i found out about it.

[MikaelLindberg]

It can’t even make a sign with the text I tell it how to spell!

[drbanana-gj]

How many times a letter appears in a word is not a spelling question. It is a counting question.

[hobbanero]

If you ask it the same question, but tell it to use python, it gets the correct answer. So AI can't spell, but it can code.

[HardKore]

Not quite you can teach it and then it gets it right

[thegamingexpert]

but I asked Gemini and it said 3 times...

[grummbunger]

I had interesting comments but youtube lost them.

[DoNhatMinhhh]

No.
When you ask Chat GPT how many "R"s are in "Strawberry" it will simply count the R's in the spelling of the word "Strawberry" which is: "Strô, berē" and as you can see, "Strô, berē" only has two R's because the "rr" merged and sound like one R. Nobody say: Straw Ber Ry instead they say Straw bery.

Chat GPT will only give you the right answer (Which is 3) when you ask it "How many R are in the word Strawberry, not the spelling of Strawberry."

Hope this help!

[grummbunger]

I bet this is posting but simply disappears for me. the counter is going up each time

I'll come ba k to delete later cant see any posts right now. ty vm youtube

[Sociology_Tube]

random non patterned aribitrary rules are not followable by logical robots. unless you GIVE THEM the exception. Expecting it to learn the aribitrary historical truths of culture is obsence to the mind.

[AAWOLFE-zcly]

this is BS I just asked Meta AI, answered 3 rs are in the word strawberry... palm to face...these days you have to check every gd thing ...