Watch: AI can't answer the simple question 'How many Rs in strawberry?,' & people are baffled, here's why

You might have come across videos recently where people ask AI the question, "How many Rs are there in the word strawberry?"—a question that seems straightforward but leaves AI baffled. With fear mongering of AI taking over human jobs and rendering us obsolete, this confusion is particularly striking. Now, a software engineer is stepping in to shed light on why even the most advanced AI can trip up on such seemingly simple queries.

In a recent Instagram video, Alberta, a software engineer, explains why AI models are struggling with a simple question: "How many Rs are in the word 'strawberry'"

For instance, OpenAI's ChatGPT says there are two 'R's in "strawberry," and Meta AI gives the same incorrect answer.?

Claude, an AI from Anthropic, even "respectfully disagrees" when corrected about the mistake.

Alberta explains that the problem lies in how large language model technologies such as AI processes text.?

Check out her video:

She states that before an AI model actually receives the text that you typed into ChatGPT.com, it tokenises that input - that is, assigns a numeric digit to it which makes it easier for the computer to deal with all the data.

This means that AI assigns every single word or part of a word to a Token ID.

So, the AI model bases its predictions on these numerical tokens rather than the actual text. This means the AI never truly "sees" the word "strawberry" as a whole. Instead, it ends up making a random guess, according to Alberta.

But Alberta has a fix for this: she suggests breaking down the word "strawberry" into individual letters and then asking the AI model:
"How many Rs are in S T R A W B E R R Y?"?

By turning each letter into its own token, the AI gets more detailed information, which improves its accuracy.

For now, it looks like AI models have learned to count the Rs in "strawberry" correctly. However, they're now up against a new test: "raspberry."

Well, AI, get ready for the tests because humans have plenty of berries to throw your way.

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