Chat GPT, despite having millions of training examples of arithmetic, has completely failed to generalize to three or four digit addition problems not seen in training, particularly those involving carrying, and completely fails at multiplication, demonstrating that even apparently capable language models lack genuine understanding of basic mathematical operations.

factualpending

Speaker

Stuart Russell

Evidence Quote

despite having millions of examples it's completely failed to generalize so if it if you give it you know a three or four digit addition problem that it hasn't seen before and particularly ones that involve carrying it fails

Source

The Trouble with AI: A Conversation with Stuart Russell and Gary Marcus (Episode #312)Sam Harris
Created: 8/11/2026, 1:51:56 AM

My Notes

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