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by CamperBob2 126 days ago
The best pro/research-grade models from Google and OpenAI now have little difficulty recognizing when they don't know how or can't find enough information to solve a given problem. The free chatbot models rarely will, though.
1 comments
londons_explore 126 days ago
This seems true for info not in the question - eg. "Calculate the volume of a cylinder with height 10 meters".

However it is less true with info missing from the training data - ie. "I have a Diode marked UM16, what is the maximum current at 125C?"

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CamperBob2 126 days ago
This seems fine...?

https://chatgpt.com/share/698e992b-f44c-800b-a819-f899e83da2...

I don't see anything wrong with its reasoning. UM16 isn't explicitly mentioned in the data sheet, but the UM prefix is listed in the 'Device marking code' column. The model hedges its response accordingly ("If the marking is UM16 on an SMA/DO-214AC package...") and reads the graph in Fig. 1 correctly.

Of course, it took 18 minutes of crunching to get the answer, which seems a tad excessive.

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londons_explore 125 days ago
Indeed that answer is awesome. Much better than Gemini 2.5 pro which invented a 16 kilovolt diode which it just hoped would be marked "UM16".
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