[kmmlng]

I think you both have a point. Clearly, something about the way we build LLMs today makes them inept at these kinds of tasks. It's unclear how fundamental this problem is as far as I'm concerned.

Clearly, humans also need training in these things and almost no one figures out how to do basic things like long division by themselves. Some people sometimes figure things out, and more importantly, they do so by building on what came before.

The difference between humans and LLMs is that even after being trained and given access to near everything that came before, LLMs are terrible at this stuff.