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> Remember that test where you ask a LLM whether 9.11 or 9.9 is the bigger number? [Just checked gpt-4o still gets it wrong]

Interesting, 4o got this right for me in a couple different framings including the simple "Which number is larger, 9.9 or 9.11?". To be a full apologist, there are a few different places (a lot of software versioning as one) where 9.11 is essentially the bigger number so it may be an ambiguous question without context anyway.



How can "which is the larger number" be an ambiguous question?


Which is the bigger version number? Version 9.9 or version 9.11? Which is the bigger dollar amount? $9.9 or $9.11?

Periods are not always used for the decimal separator but also as a separator for multiple sets of semi-independent numbers.


I have never seen someone write $9.09 as $9.9. What country is this common in?


None. That is the point. 9.9 can be both bigger or smaller than 9.11 depending on context


if someone says "which is the bigger number" with no context you wont assume software version number, lets be real here

also $9.9 is clearly 9 dollars and 90 cents.


As everyone else has said, semver. I use semver so often that my initial reading of 9.9 < 9.11 in a Hacker News comment would evaluate to true.


There are some contexts where 9.11 is larger than 9.9, such as semver, so it could be ambiguous depending on the context.


Larger in magnitude or in count of digits?




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