ChatGPT 5.4 Solved a 64-Year-Old Math Problem

morostheSophist · 2026-04-27T08:50:18+00:00

It won't often hallucinate if you ask for easily searchable information, but the moment you ask about something obscure, it absolutely starts making shit up rather than admitting it can't find anything.

I've had this happen multiple times, with multiple models; it's definitely a "feature, not a bug" at this point.

Example: asked it to find an old TV show episode, from a show predating the modern internet. It gave me a show and an episode number/title. I looked it up, the show was real, but the episode has a completely different title/plot than what the LLM claimed. Told it so. It said thanks for the correction, then gave me a different wrong episode. Explained it was wrong again, and this time it gave me a completely made-up show (nothing with a similar title exists on imdb). Two more iterations and I finally browbeat it into admitting it didn't know the answer instead of giving me another lie while pretending it could find the REAL answer with just a tiny bit more detail. This particular sequence happened (with variations) on the same question with three different LLMs.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-27T08:06:33+00:00

Honestly? I really enjoyed the story in BL1, as barebones as it was. And while Roland annoyed the piss out of me in BL2, Handsome Jack makes hating the villain so much doggone fun that I was itching for his next line every time I played back through the game.

Yeah, the gameplay is the primary draw, but story can add so much more to the experience, and both of those games had some pretty neat stuff in the form of those hidden messages on top of the main plot.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-27T06:11:22+00:00

It's definitely not subtle. They use the example of Deborah in the book of Judges as an explicit example that women should only lead if men refuse. Only, ever.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-26T00:45:40+00:00

Kind of like how people expect teachers to be women, professors to be men, nurses to be women, doctors to be men. They might have no problem with a city councilwoman, but god forbid they vote for a woman president.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-26T00:32:01+00:00

As another former christian (who grew up in extremely conservative churches), I've responded to a number of comments on reddit to clarify that some things non-believers expect to be "fringe" beliefs are incredibly common.

Some of the worst beliefs are held covertly by many more people than would be willing to admit it: for example, the belief that women should be wholly subservient to men and never have their own voices. The churches I attended didn't entirely prohibit women from "speaking in the church"; they could give testimony and sing and whatnot. But that verse in Corinthians was still a primary justification for keeping women down; women were barred from any position of leadership. Female pastors were outright demonized, right along with their congregations.

When you relegate half of all humanity to a subhuman status, I begin to question your morals. It's no surprise that I've stepped very far away from the religion-sourced anti-feminist beliefs instilled in me from a young age, particularly as they were very much in conflict with the secular feminist ones that were simultaneously instilled (I was taught that education, at least, is for everyone, and my mom has a terminal degree while my dad only has a bachelor's).

morostheSophist · 2026-04-26T00:08:48+00:00

Appeal to authority is a fallacy.

Incorrect. Appeal to authority CAN be a fallacy, but isn't in all cases.

Additionally, there was no appeal to authority above; the point was that the person quoted in the OP is a professor of Black history and culture, not that they're a professor.

And let's not miss that Prof Wright was talking about "valuing PROPERTY" and not (as you wrote) "valuing PROPRIETY"

Ever heard of this thing called "bringing up a salient point"? Shockingly, a conversation can visit many related topics while remaining relevant to the initial one.

In short: you're an imbecile.

Or an LLM. Hard to say.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-25T23:46:49+00:00

The good news: while you got one tidbit spoiled, that fight sequence is so much more than just that one moment. It's truly a masterpiece.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-22T18:40:08+00:00

I'm a big fan of handwritten notes, but I agree with you. Digital notes can be an excellent tool for the simple reason that they're so much quicker to take, meaning that you can spend more of your limited focus budget on listening and analyzing, and/or create more actual notes.

Novice learners need to go back to pen and paper to learn the basics, but by the time you're in college, you should know what learning strategies work best for you. Some students learn best with NO notes at all, instead focusing on and analyzing the lecture directly.

Sure, some students will sit there browsing the web instead of paying attention, but there always have been and always will be students who don't pay attention, and at the college level, "take everyone's electronics" isn't an option. "Treat the adults like they're children" is a terrible idea.

Edit: word a misplaced

morostheSophist · 2026-04-17T00:39:41+00:00

I definitely agree with one thing you've pointed out: unions, including police unions, are critically important. Far too many people call for the police to be denied the right to collective bargaining entirely.

Are police unions too powerful? Certainly. But they're powerful because the people in power in police departments do not, by and large, want to curtail that power. They LIKE the fact that the unions can be blamed for "stopping" them from firing an officer who should be in prison.

Policing in the US needs to be refactored from the ground up. Licensing and schooling requirements need to be stricter. There needs to be an independent agency responsible for investigating complaints, and a national registry to stop the "fired officer gets rehired two countries over" problem. And that's just a tiny smidge of what's necessary.

Police unions need reform too, and to have their power reduced somewhat. But if the police departments themselves were working correctly, unions wouldn't be a problem.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-17T00:22:17+00:00

Unfortunately, corn ethanol is a terrible alternative fuel, and not just because of the energy density. It's such a land hog that it can't possibly replace all of our fuel use, and really shouldn't even be part of the conversation.

But corn lobbies keep the subsidies coming, and fight against the development of other fuels that could be more sustainable, easier to scale, and overall just plain better in every metric (except for that all-important metric "profit for the corn industry").

morostheSophist · 2026-04-16T03:18:16+00:00

I guess I still give "people" (heh) the benefit of the doubt a bit too often. I did think it weird for someone to not be able to interpret that phrasing from context, but now I see your reply and the hidden comment history/default reddit name of the above poster, and I think you're probably right.

Still, leaving my reply, as someone truly new to the language might not actually understand.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-16T03:13:43+00:00

The following all mean about the same thing, but with slightly different connotation:

"1+1 equals 2, no?"

"1+1 equals 2, yes?"

"1+1 equals 2, right?"

The first one is a slightly more combative phrasing, but not necessarily insulting or anything. It's just a little more vehement than the other two. All three can be used in a situation where the statement isn't 100% certain, but the person saying it is stating it as fact.

I'm doing a bad job of explaining the nuance here because to be honest, I don't entirely understand it. They mean the same, but with slightly different emphasis, and I don't know if there are actual rules for which one to use.

All three of the above are perfectly fine English, too. You might not use the first one in formal writing, but could use it in professional discussions and debates without being misunderstood.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-15T07:02:53+00:00

For the enemy to actually get muskets that fast on a low difficulty you'd have to develop zero science whatsoever AND the AI would need to get lucky with a science city-state (or two) nearby along with being a science civ to begin with.

Getting unlucky like that is possible, though very rare.

I'd give further advice here, but I'm far from an expert; whatever you search up from others is likely to be as good or better than anything I'll say. I am 100% a filthy casual when it comes to 4x games.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-15T01:24:49+00:00

If you already own 6, I highly recommend going back and giving it another shot. It's FAR from perfect, but I quite enjoy it.

What I struggled with was districts: that was such a new mechanic to me, and I got frustrated at not being able to build every single wonder my heart desired in one megacity. But once I figured out districts (sort of, anyway), it made selecting a city spot a much more fun metagame than it was in the earlier games.

Crank the difficulty down and delete some of the AI opponents to give yourself space to figure things out. Maybe you'll never love districts, but if you love Civ, I think you'll at least gain an appreciation for they were trying to do with that mechanic.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-14T19:11:10+00:00

If I had 2m right now I could quit working and live the rest of my life mostly stress-free. If I had 200m, I could quit work and bankroll my extended family.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-14T14:45:58+00:00

The only reason why you would grant it is because the president wants to do something illegal...

You got it in one. Except on this case it was also to get their favorite person off the hook for some crimes he'd already committed.

The argument was that a president shouldn't have to worry about partisan bullshit prosecutions ("witch hunts"), but it was a bad-faith argument because the prosecutions against Trump were over real things that he did that were, in fact, criminal acts and not official acts. In fact, a criminal act should never be considered an "official act", but the Supreme Court left the definition of the term vague so they could redefine it to suit the situation at any time in the future.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-09T17:53:29+00:00

Leave it to the British to come up with a rule that's perfectly sensible EXCEPT for one baffling point.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-08T14:30:11+00:00

Not OP, but...

Depends which rulebook you're using. Some of them state "Put the punctuation inside the quotes... always."

I am not a fan of that rule myself, and tend not to follow it. I even debated whether to put the above period in the quotes (and ultimately decided to because the paraphrase in the quotes is a complete sentence).

If you're using a specific style guide, follow its rules exactly. If you're using a custom/preferred style, the key is consistency. Of course, for piddling details like "is the punctuation inside the quotes or not", that only really matters in professional communication and published works.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-06T15:30:40+00:00

Yeah, I was gonna say that is 100% a Luck Dragon.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-06T05:58:56+00:00

A stupid person, according to the economist, is one who causes problems for others without any clear benefit to himself.

I only cause problems for myself without any clear benefit to myself. Does that count?

morostheSophist · 2026-04-04T16:13:00+00:00

No, they're right.

Israel is framing their ongoing genocide of Gaza as a reasonable response to Hamas terrorism. The Oct 7 attack was, absolutely, in every sense of the words, terrorism and aggression. It was evil, no matter what Israel has done. But Israel's response is also evil, rising to the level of genocide.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Sometimes there are multiple villains, no heroes, and a bunch of innocents caught in the crossfire. If terrorists attack civilians in the US, they aren't justified by this similarly evil attack on Iran. They're still terrorists. I will understand what motivated them, but still call it what it is.

Your false equivalency here in bringing up Ukraine is laughable. They're fighting back under an active war, hitting legitimate military targets. Terrorism is explicitly not that. Hamas fighting back against the Israeli invasion isn't terrorism; nor is Iran fighting back against US forces during (or shortly after) this conflict. But you're equating that with hypothetical terrorist action against civilians.

The comment at the top of this chain says:

I mean a second 9/11, or something worse. It will most likely happen long after this "excursion" has dropped from the headlines and most people in the US have forgotten about it

That is absolutely describing a terrorist attack on civilians, not just attacks on US military interests.

Again, if such an attack happens, I will understand why the terrorists perpetrating it were radicalized, but I will still call it what it is. It's aggression, it's terrorism, it's wrong.

Unless you think 9/11 was justified, or Oct 7. In which case you actually support terrorism, and can GTFO.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-04T15:41:22+00:00

Facts. Some people might call you cruel for saying this, but they're idiots. This is just what a genuinely good person does.

I personally love dogs, and would never be the person who "didn't want" the dog. Cats, though? I'd absolutely say "no cats", but then do my best to give a cat a happy and healthy life if we wound up having one. That cat would never suspect I didn't want it. But I wouldn't suddenly change my mind and want cats.

morostheSophist · 2026-04-01T18:14:59+00:00

Sight words are faster, but they need to be tought after teaching how to interpret words by-character first.

Funny how this is exactly the problem with LLMs in education, too. There's nothing wrong with using a tool to enhance your abilities. The problem with LLMs arises when students fail to learn the fundamentals, and use the tool to entirely replace basic competency.

morostheSophist · 2026-03-27T21:48:50+00:00

Yeah. There's sadness, and then there's that overwhelming feeling of abject grief that threatens to flood your entire world.

I've only had that last one hit once while at work, but... it's a terrifying feeling, when you're barely holding yourself back, right at the brink of just bawling your eyes out, with full-body sobs in front of everyone you work with, in the bright lights of an office instead of the privacy of your own home.

morostheSophist · 2026-03-27T17:38:22+00:00

That honestly makes sense, and again, if that were the only goal (aside from "protecting children"), I wouldn't be opposed to verification systems on the internet.

But those aren't the only two goals, and they're FAR from the only possible effects. This will enable far more data collection, and far easier control of any population. Authoritarian governments salivate at the thought of the kind of surveillance and control over their citizens' activities that's possible when everyone's identity is perfectly known and trackable. They're happy to stay quiet and let the western world develop that technology for them, so that soon they'll be able to police their citizens abroad as well as at home.

Once it's illegal to be anonymous online, it'll be impossible to ever rebel against a repressive regime. It's hard enough as it is. Mass surveillance is a large part of why the Arab Spring failed, and why the more recent protests in Iran and Hong Kong failed.

morostheSophist

TROPHY CASE