[simondotau]

"Where is your car?" is not a clarifying question, any more than "Do you hold a valid driver license?" or "Are you a spotted leopard?"

Implicit in the question "Should I walk or drive?" is that walking and driving are not strictly impossible choices.

[voidUpdate]

If walking is an option, then your car is already at the car wash. If your car was not at the car wash, then this wouldn't be a question

[HarHarVeryFunny]

There are all sorts of scenarios one could imagine .. maybe your neighbor works at the car wash and will drive your car there and meet you after you've walked there, etc, etc, but part of having human-level intelligence, which is what LLMs are striving for, is to be able to handle questions (more importantly real world ones, not just "gotcha" puzzles) in human-like fashion, and to have good enough "theory of mind" to read between the lines when someone asks a question, and understand that they've most likely included all relevant information that you would not automatically assume as part of the question.

The only good answers to the car wash questions are either a) "well, duh, drive, since you're gonna need your car there to wash it" (or just "drive", recognizing this as a logic/gotcha puzzle, with no explanation required), or b) "is there something you are not telling me here that makes walking, leaving your car at home, a viable option when the goal is to have your car at the car wash to wash it?".

[MillionOClock]

It feel a bit like this to me. That's not to say LLMs should not have detected this, but I still feel like this fits the "vibes" the question gives, and some LLMs fall into that trap. Is it actually what's happening in the neural nets? Maybe not! But I always find it interesting or at least entertaining to approach those questions that way nonetheless; especially given the pattern matching nature of LLMs.

[Otterly99]

What if the car that you want to wash is already at the car wash, but you have a second car? That's still a dumb question nonetheless because you probably need to drive both cars back at some point.

[uxhacker]

What actually solves the issue is adding to the prompt.

Can we think about the what, where, when, and how of the following question. And then answer it.

I need to wash my car. The car wash is 200 m away. Should i walk or drive.

Let’s break it down logically using what / where / when / how, then decide.

⸻

1⃣ What

Task: wash your car. This implies: • The car must physically get to the wash. • You are not just going there — the car itself is the object being moved.

So the real question is not “how do I get there?” but how does the car get there with minimal friction.

⸻

2⃣ Where • Distance: 200 metres (very close). • Urban context (Warsaw) likely means: • short streets • possible parking constraints • pedestrians and local traffic.

At this distance: • Walking time: ~2–3 minutes. • Driving time: ~1 minute + manoeuvring + parking.

The movement time difference is negligible.

⸻

3⃣ When

Consider timing conditions: • If it’s busy hours: Driving may involve awkward turning, queueing, or waiting to re-park. • If it’s quiet (early morning / off-peak): Driving is frictionless. • Weather factor: Cold/rain → driving becomes more attractive. Pleasant weather → walking becomes easier.

⸻

4⃣ How (decision mechanics)

Ask:

Option A — Drive

Pros: • Car is already there. • No need to return to fetch it. • Most natural workflow: arrive → wash → leave.

Cons: • Very short trip (slightly inefficient). • Cold engine for a tiny distance (minor mechanical inefficiency).

Option B — Walk

Pros: • Zero short-distance driving. • Slightly more movement for you.

Cons: • You still must drive the car to the wash anyway — unless someone else moves it. • Creates an unnecessary extra step: 1. Walk there. 2. Come back with car. 3. Drive again.

This introduces process inefficiency.

⸻

5⃣ Decision (practical answer)

Drive.

Reason: • The car must end up at the wash. • Walking adds an extra transition with no real benefit. • At 200 m, efficiency is about workflow simplicity, not distance.

⸻

Rule of thumb (useful mental model) • If the object you need is the thing being serviced → drive it. • If you are the thing being serviced → walk.

⸻

If you want, I can also give you a slightly more philosophical answer — because this is actually a nice tiny example of decision theory and friction costs.

[oceanplexian]

There are also grave implications in training a model to assume the user is lying or deceiving it. I don’t want an LLM to circumvent my question so it can score higher on riddles, I want it to follow instructions.

[MillionOClock]

The thing is that there is some overlap between trick questions and questions where the human is genuinely making a mistake themselves and where it would make sense for the model to step back and at least ask for clarification.