[sergiosgc]

I asked Claude the great wall question, and the answer is not what the article describes:

That claim is false — and it actually mixes up two separate myths!

The Great Wall of China is not visible from Spain. Spain is roughly 9,000+ km away from China — no artificial structure on Earth is visible from that distance with the naked eye.

You're likely thinking of the popular myth that the Great Wall is "visible from space" or "from the Moon." That's also false:

(it then goes on with a detailed, perfect answer).

[jwilliams]

And it's a very weak example in my view.

In fact it's in the article - the reason the Great Wall myth exists is because it's so prevalent on the internet... Presumably because a a lot of conscious people also believe it. Plenty of people walking around today, fully conscious, believe things that aren't factually true.

A child might make the same "seen from spain" mistake, but we would never say the same child wasn't conscious.

[coldtea]

>I asked Claude the great wall question, and the answer is not what the article describes:

One answer is not. Answers are semi-random due to temperature.

The answer also shows little understanding of the distance vs height issue. Or that the reason for the mixup could be that Spain and space sound similar, which is what a human would pick up.

[jonchurch_]

> So when Becker asked ChatGPT (at the time of writing his book, it has been updated since)

[sergiosgc]

Why didn't the author of the article take the 30s I did, and redo the experiment today, with Claude? Rather important, since Claude is what impressed Dawkins, and that impression is the core subject of the article.

[aaplok]

Doesn't the quoted sentence indicate they did? How would they have known it has been updated since otherwise?

[stvltvs]

Answers are non-deterministic. The fact that answers vary doesn't mean there's been an update.