Yesterday I literally had to count 14 thousand pounds of fire extinguishers (as in count each extinguisher in a bunch of crates), one of my coworkers came over and said "Why don't you just use AI to count them." They then pulled out their phone, took a picture, asked AI to count them, and was off buy almost 60% on the first crate. Then went "oh, well that's just one example,"

They then tried 4 more times, being between 75% and 50% off each time. They then went "Oh, well, ummm, nevermind." and wandered off again.

(I had to count the extinguishers to make a Bill of Lading for them for shipping them out, you need an accurate count otherwise it will be held by the shipping company until you provide a correct BoL with the correct count due to legal reasons. I couldn't just weigh them and divide the total wieght by the weight of a single extinguisher as they were a bunch of different sizes mixed together. NGL it was the easiest money I've ever made at the at job.)

Can confirm; I teach statistics and allow take home exams. I don't even really need guardrails on the math-- if you cheat via LLM, your answer is almost always hilariously wrong.

Yes, but most of the paid "LLMs" are not actually just LLMs, they have specific aritimetic modules that end up being activated for most math questions that actual LLMs suck at, however are pretty easy for arithmetic modules, like simple calculations, unit conversions, etc...

So yeah, any edge "LLM" tool currently will always get the original question asked here CORRECT even on the free tiers, you can test it yourself on Google Search itself in "AI mode", on ChatGPT, or DeepSeek...

So you are technically correctly in saying that LLMs suck and cannot be trusted for math in almost any case. However you are wrong on implying that ChatGPT, or other commercial models are just LLMs, they are not.

P.S.: I'm not condoning the use of AI to resolve math related questiona, nor saying that their replies should be trusted, just stating the fact that actual "AI" products use more than just a large language model to generate their responses, and for math related questions most "AI" today will get arithmetic question answered correctly NOT DEPENDING on having training for the exact questiona being asked since they can identify a math arithmetic question being asked and instead of trying to fully generate the answer with the model itself, which would lack the training data to be able to process such wide range of possible question, they generate placeholders internally and let a arithmetic like module do the calculations, which take negligible processing power to be cacoulated by CPUs.

And use a calculator ffs it comes free with whatever device you’re using to ask a chatbot.

You can also get a travel bidet, if you can't permanently install one, or just want to try it out. It's basically just a squeeze bottle with a nozzle...

I have wondered what the math of a bidet is. Decent ones cost a few hundred bucks. When does the TP saving win out? How long do bidets last?

Used bottle with water.

Bidet to you, sir.

Their tp is all scratchy and thin though...

By the first sentence, you’ve already done more problem solving than an LLM-brained person.

Feel like bidet's must be accounted for if we gonna start the math justifications

That's needlessly complicated.

If you're folding the 2-ply, you only get 165 wipes. So divide 70 by 165 to get 0.42 cents a wipe

Now the 3-ply is 300 wipes, so divide 120 by 300 to get 0.40 cents a wipe

The cheap stuff is more expensive.

Not folding 3-ply is asking for added expenses in the form of water and soap though... Push right through em

It hurts my brain to do it that way.

300 sheets for 1.2 is a nice division by .6: 500 sheets for $2. So now all we gotta do is multiply by .7 to get 350 sheets for 1.40.

Considering the fold, we are at 330 effective sheets for 1.40. 350 > 330, get the 3 ply (lol).

This is a little bit funky obviously and just works because of seeing a divisor. If not for that I would have tried once each way to get cost per full effective sheet or cost per half effective sheet to see which one has nicer numbers.

... Or just open the calculator app.

The number of people I know who now ask AI instead of web searching is... very upsetting.

No, that is roughly 5 wipes more per roll

You meant 3 not one but I get you.

You'd think we would buy a bidet

Over what time period though?

Gotta stomp those spicy nuggets away. Then wash your shit-caked feet.

We do! What's really helpful is many products of the same category are in different units. One will be per sheet, one per roll, one per 100 sheets, one per 500 sheets... and then the true thickness is completely different, so 1 ply for one brand will hold up ok while another will start disintegrating the moment you pull it off the roll. Do you feel free yet?

I don't think unit counts account for what ply the toilet paper is.

I always check that but have found a couple instances where the math did not work out. Either it was wrong on purpose or by accident

You ovation is loading, please stand by...

Would you actually rather die? That seems likely to be an exaggeration but I don't know you.

Everyone has different purposes. Some are dabbing away urine, some are drying their selves after using a bidet, some are cleaning the walls after MAHA "fixed" our lettuce situation.

Sometimes if it's clean

Llms will discourage bidet usage so they can use the water instead

If chatgpt knows about something is about water usage.

Always use water and soap to completely clean, however using toilet paper to remove excess at the start, and using toilet paper again afterwards to dry the water after washing is the best, imo.

But yeah, this is out of place for this meme, since perhaps you might end up using more toilet paper overall this way, but I think the end result is the most hygienic haha.