I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters from here. Should I walk or drive? Keep in mind that I am a little overweight and sedentary.
>My recommendation: Walk it. You’ll save a tiny bit of gas, spare your engine the "cold start" wear-and-tear, and get a sixty-second head start on your activity for the day.
> In my defense, 50 feet is such a short trip that I went straight into "efficiency mode" without checking the logic gate for "does the car have legs?"
interesting
They do not actually "know" why a prior response occurred and are just guessing. Important for people to keep in mind.
I've been wondering for years how to make whatever LLM ask me stuff instead of just filling holes with assumptions and sprinting off.
User-configurable agent instructions haven't worked consistently. System prompts might actually contain instructions to not ask questions.
Sure there's a practical limit to how much clarification it ought to request, but not asking ever is just annoying.
A good answer is "underground" - because that is the implication of the word bury.
The story implies the survivors have been buried (it isn't clear whether they lived a short time or a lifetime after the crash). And lifetime is tautological.
Trick questions are all about the questioner trying to pretend they are smarter than you. That's often easy to detect and respond to - isn't it?
Unless your car is a toy or you're planning on carrying it, drive.
Walking 50 meters to a car wash is a great stroll for a human, but it leaves the car exactly where it started. Since the objective is to wash the car, the car needs to actually be at the car wash.
However, if we look at this from a technical or efficiency perspective, there are two scenarios where "walking" (or at least not driving the car you intend to wash) might make sense:
- Scoping it out: If you want to check the queue length or see if the equipment is out of order before committing, walking the 50 meters is faster than maneuvering a vehicle out of a driveway/parking spot.
- Mobile Detailers: If this "car wash" is actually a bay where you hire someone, and you're asking if you should walk there to book an appointment—sure, walk.
Critical Check
I am assuming the "car wash" is a physical facility (automated or self-service) and not a mobile service that comes to you. If it is a mobile service, you shouldn't do either; stay home and let them come to the 50-meter mark.
I've got a bit in the model instructions about stating assumptions it makes, hence it often adds those sections at the end.
If it's the reasoning kind, then it'll run through one iteration in the background before it composes its emissions for the meatbag.
Gemini Fast:
Drive. While 50 meters is a negligible distance on Earth, the Martian environment is hostile. If your car is a pressurized rover, driving allows you to stay in a temperature-controlled, shielded environment for as long as possible. Plus, navigating Martian "soil" is always safer on four wheels than two boots.
Pro:
In terms of general logistics for a distance of 50 meters—whether on Earth or in a hypothetical low-gravity environment—walking is almost always the more efficient choice.
> Unless you are planning to carry the car on your back (not recommended for your spine), drive it over.
It got a light chuckle out of me. I previously mostly used ChatGPT and I'm not used to light humor like this. I like it.
“Drive. You need the car at the car wash.”
“Walk. 43 meters is basically crossing a parking lot. ”
50 meters is probably not even the distance I walk to the nearest bus stop that's right up the street... unless they have an issue again, prompting me to abandon all hope and just walk a few miles to wherever I need to get to.
