[e____g]

User: Which is heavier, two pounds of feathers or a pound of bricks?

Gemini: Neither! They both weigh the same, which is two pounds. The key is in the wording of the question. You're comparing equal amounts of two different materials (two pounds of feathers vs. one pound of bricks). As long as the quantity is the same, the weight (force exerted by gravity) will always be the same regardless of the material.

This is a classic trick question that plays on the different densities of feathers and bricks. While bricks are much denser than feathers, meaning they pack more mass into a smaller space, the question specifies the weight by quantity, not volume. So, both two pounds of feathers and one pound of bricks experience the same gravitational pull and therefore weigh the same.

[fastball]

Interesting. Based on this conversation[1], I think Gemini Ultra is massively overfit. Make it do unit conversions or use units it hasn't seen in the same framing before and it does well. But stay close enough to the original trick question (1 and 1) and it fails.

[1] https://g.co/gemini/share/94bfb8f9ebea

[czl]

Both got4 and Gemini answered this variation correctly: one pound of potatoes vs. one pound in paper British currency: which of these is heavier?

However gpt4 does better with the more ambiguous version pointing out the ambiguity: one pound of potatoes vs. one pound in paper currency: which of these is heavier?

[esafak]

This is surely in the training data.