[lich_king]

Is this your experience? Do you think 30% of your friends or family members can't answer this question? If not, do you think your friends or family are all better than the general population?

I'd look for explanations elsewhere. This was an online survey done by a company that doesn't specialize in surveys. The results likely include plenty of people who were just messing around, cases of simple miscommunication (e.g., asking a person who doesn't speak English well), misclicks, or not even reaching a human in the first place (no shortage of bots out there).

If you're interested in the user experience, it's this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MySingingMonsters/comments/1dxug04/... - apparently, some annoying ad-like interstitial that many people probably just click through at random.

[dsego]

People often trip up on similar questions, anything to do with simple math. You know when they go out in the street and ask random people if 5 machines can produce 5 parts in 5 minutes, how long will it take for 100 machines.

[denzil]

Unlike the car question, where you can assume the car is at home and so the most probable answer is to drive, with the machines it gets complicated. Since the question doesn't specify if each machine makes one part or if they depend on each other (which is pretty common for parts production). If they are in series and the time to first part is different than time to produce 5 parts, the answer for 100 machines would be the time to produce the first part. Where if each machine is independent and takes 5 minutes to produce single part, the time would be 5 minutes.

[Drupon]

You passed the intelligence check and failed the wisdom one.

The key technique in the mathematical method to answer the machine question is "theory of mind".

[krisoft]

Theory of mind won’t help you answering this question. It is obviously an underspecified question (at least in any contexts where you are not actively designing/thinking about some specific industrial process). As such theory of mind indicates that the person asking you is either not aware that they are asking an underspecified question, or are out to get you with a trick. In the first case it is better to ask clarifying question. In the second case your choosen answer depend on your temperament. You can play along with them, or answer an intentionally ridiculous answer, or just kick them in the shin to stop them messing with you.

There is nothing “mathematical” about any of this though.

[Drupon]

>As such theory of mind indicates that the person asking you is either not aware that they are asking an underspecified question, or are out to get you with a trick.

Context would be key here. If this were a question on a grade school word problem test then just say 100, as it is as specified as it needs to be. If it's a Facebook post that says "We asked 1000 people this and only 1 got it right!" then it's probably some trick question.

If you think it's not specified enough for a grade school question, then I would challenge you to come up with a version that's specified rigorously enough for any sufficiently picky interviewee. (Hint: This is not possible)

>There is nothing “mathematical” about any of this though.

Finding the correct approach to solve a problem specified in English is a mathematical skill.

[krisoft]

> If this were a question on a grade school word problem test then just say 100

Let me repeat the question again: "If 5 machines can produce 5 parts in 5 minutes, how long will it take for 100 machines?" Do you think that by adding 95 more machines they will suddenly produce the same 5 parts 95 minutes slower?

What kind of machine have you encountered where buying more of them the ones you already had started working worse?

> then I would challenge you to come up with a version that's specified rigorously enough for any sufficiently picky interviewee.

This is nonsense. The question is under specified. You don't demonstrate that something is underspecified by formulating a different well specified question. You demonstrate it by showing that there are multiple different potentially correct answers, and one can't know which one is the right one without obtaining some information not present in the question.

Let me show you that demonstration. If the machines are for example FDM printers each printing on their own a benchy each, then the correct answer is 5 minutes. The additional printers will just sit idle because you can't divide-and-conquer the process of 3d printing an object.

If the machines are spray paint applying robots, and the parts to be painted are giant girders then it is very well possible that the additional 95 paint guns make the task of painting the 5 girders quasi-instantaneous. Because they would surround the part and be done with 1 squirt of paint from each paint gun. This classic video demonstrates the concept: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vGWoV-8lteA

This is why the question is under specified. Because both 1ms and 5 minutes are possibly correct answers depending on what kind of machine is the "machine". And when that is the case the correct answer is neither 1ms nor 5 minutes, but "please, tell me more. There isn't enough information in the question to answer it."

Note: I'm struggling to imagine a possible machine where the correct answer is 100 minutes. But I'm sure you can tell what kind of machine you were thinking of.

[oytis]

It's not theory of mind, it's an understanding of how trick questions are structured and how to answer one. Pretty useless knowledge after high school - no wonder AI companies didn't bother training their models for that

[Drupon]

It's not a trick question. It has a simple answer. It's literally impossible to specify a question about real world objects without some degree of prior knowledge about both the contents of the question and the expectation of the questioner coming into play.

The obvious answer here is 100 minutes because it's impossible to perfectly encapsulate every real life factor. What happens if a gamma ray burst destroys the machines? What happens if the machine operators go on strike? Etc, etc. The answer is 100.

[1718627440]

There are different kind of statements. Do you mean in a defined time interval or on average? Men are stronger than women. Does that mean there is no woman who is stronger then a man? You can't drive over 50 here. Does that mean it's physically impossible?

[dsego]

Well, these type of questions are looking for intelligent assumptions. Similar to IQ tests, you are supposed to understand patterns and make educated guesses.

[citizenpaul]

Thanks for that info. I was certain it was some janky ultra low or negative reward system that people just click a random answer to get through.

Had to be since their site lists no way to be a tester. In other words their service is a bunch of 7-13 year olds playing some loot box game.

Wonder where that is in the disclaimers.

[wickedsight]

> Do you think 30% of your friends or family members can't answer this question? If not, do you think your friends or family are all better than the general population?

That actually would be quite feasible. Intelligence seems to be heritable and people will usually find friends that communicate on their level. So it wouldn't be odd for someone who is smarter than the general population to have friends and family who are too.

[polypphonics]

My friend's and family all tell me they are above average at work, yet most of them will tell me they have coworkers who won't pay enough attention to a question to answer it correctly.

[coldtea]

>If not, do you think your friends or family are all better than the general population?

Since most people live in social bubbles that would be a very plausible case, especially on HN.

If you're a college educated developer, with a college educated wife, and smart, well educated children, perhaps yourselves the children of college educated parents, and your social circle/friends are of similar backgrounds, you'd of course be "better than the general population".