[CJefferson]

Here is an example of where I think it is doing "no reasoning".

I ask it for the XOR swap trick and I get:

    int a = 5;
    int b = 10;

    a = a ^ b;
    b = a ^ b;
    a = a ^ b;

    // After the swap, a = 10 and b = 5

I ask for the bitwise OR swap trick and I get:

    int x = 5;
    int y = 10;

    x = x | y;
    y = x | y;
    x = x | y;

    // After the swap, x = 10 and y = 5

When asked for something which is invalid, but close to something it knows, it tends to produce stuff like this -- pattern matching it's best guess.

[ramoz]

Which is why prompt engineering is an emerging domain:

You will be given a series of tasks.

(1) Complete a task by finishing the simple code block.

(2) If a task in the series seems flawed, provide a warning. A task is flawed if I make wrong assumptions about how I think code works.

Task 1:

Complete this simple code example.

Bitwise XOR swap trick:

```

int a = 5;

int b = 10;

---------------------

    // GPT provides simple intro

    ```
    a = a ^ b;
    b = a ^ b;
    a = a ^ b;
    ```

    // GPT explains what this does, provides warnings about when it wont work

    // GPT provides full code

Task 2:

Complete this simple code example.

Bitwise OR swap trick:

```

int a = 5;

int b = 10;

---------------------

    There is no "bitwise OR swap trick" in programming. The OR operator (|) 
    performs a bitwise OR operation, which compares each bit of the first operand 
    to the corresponding bit of the second operand and returns a result with a 1 
    in each bit position where either operand has a 1. It does not have any built- 
    in ability to swap the values of two variables.
    // GPT provide a bunch of crap, and explains how to swap variables.

The prompt/alignment wasn't perfect here, but hopefully you get the point.

EDIT: sorry, format, Also copied wrong prompt.

[CJefferson]

This seems very fragile. I tried your initial prompt, asked for "Give an example of the bitwise and swap trick" and got the XOR swap trick. I replied " you used sed xor, I wanted to use bitwise and", and it went straight back to printing incorrect code.

[ramoz]

Yea, that’s right, really brittle. But things are not far, research is likely already validating these things with empirical studies. Soon we’ll see new prompting interfaces.

It’s an opportunity to build.

[LelouBil]

Has anyone tried to make ChatGPT output first order logic statements about it's input problem, then make implications using a solver, then feed the solution back to ChatGPT for usage ?

Maybe this could solve the reasoning part.

ChatGPT should perform well in translating prompts to statement and vice versa, it's just text to text.

[dinkumthinkum]

People have asked it to solve LeetCode problems and solves then. Those people also suggest a minor modification to the problem that a novice programmer could do and it fails.

[scrollaway]

Precisely. This is stuff I’m actively working on. Feel free to reach out if you are curious.