Posted on 09/16/2026 10:15:58 AM PDT by Red Badger
Don’t ask an AI chatbot how many letter e’s there are in the word “seventeen.” Or do, actually, if you want to see how dodgy the tech remains.
In a clip that’s gone viral in AI circles, the content creator who goes by “Husk” asks ChatGPT’s Voice mode to answer this simple counting question. Not only does the confident-sounding AI get it wrong — insisting there’re only three e’s instead of four — it doubles down so vehemently that it effectively tries to gaslight the user.
“Let’s go through it. S-e-v-e-n-t-e-e-n,” ChatGPT spells out, after assuring that its underlying model, GPT-6, is “pretty much” the smartest model out there. “Those are three e’s.”
When Husk points out the obvious, the chatbot doesn’t back down.
“I said three e’s,” the AI snaps. “And it’s three.”
“No, it’s four,” Husk points out.
“It’s still three,” ChatGPT shoots back.
After Husk points out that ChatGPT just spelled out for e’s for about the fifth time, the AI appears to give up.
“Alright,” it says, falling silent.
“So you agree?” Husk asks.
“No, it’s still three,” it sulks.
This is the AI that OpenAI wants your grandma to talk to, by the way.
The video is a reminder that, as incredible as chatbots can be at synthesizing large amounts of information, they remain as prone as ever to hallucinating and messing up simple questions.
It doesn’t appear, though, that the model in the video was GPT-6. Replying to Husk, an OpenAI employee said that ChatGPT Voice, contrary to the AI’s own admission, is still using an older model called GPT-Live-1, but added that the AI can “delegate” to more powerful models when needed. In the video, the employee clarified, Voice didn’t delegate.
Husk then raises an obvious question. “If there’s push back from the user like this to double check its answer why would it not delegate?” The OpenAI’s employee replies that this is a “good point.”
This may let GPT-6 off the hook, but not how AI companies choose to present their tech. How many users will be familiar with the hidden mechanisms behind the chatbot they’re talking to — and that their questions, whether they be important or inane, are sometimes deliberately fed to an inferior model?
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Chat GPT sounds like a liberal white woman.
It can be extremely useful however there are a lot of strange things about it which users, including me, don’t really understand. For example, rather than actually knowing it is often predicting what the answer should be.
I just watched a symposium about this they gave the example of a cancer test which comes back negative 98% of the time, so the AI if it defaults to simply saying there is no cancer when it reviews results, will be right 98% of the time but it will miss the actual cancers.
You need to make sure you’re using the male version of the app. The female version will NEVER admit to being wrong...and will make you sleep on the couch.
And any time you have another “discussion” she will remind you of all the other ones through-out history.
He should have asked how many letters in the word and then to name off each of those letters to the corresponding number, I would have liked to see the response to that.
ChatGPT is next to useless. Wrong and strong.
Thanks for the laugh! :)
I wonder what would have happened I the user said - “the word seventeen is a compound word made from the 2 words seven and teen. How many e’s in seven? How many e’s in teen?”
Don’t worry. They wont let AI have the launch codes because we have to get fallible humans out of the loop.
I use AI constantly but it is getting worse everyday. there are occasionally good developments such as on Grok but most of it is terrible and counterproductive.
One of the simplest case studies for me is the use of Microsoft Word since 1998.
Probably the easiest AI task of all time is spell checking.
Word in 2026 cannot discern whether words are spelled incorrectly 30 years later.
I have the red line in books I write every year where the world is definitely not misspelled. When I click on the red line it has no suggestions. But it does want to assert that a word like ‘propaganda’ is misspelled.
It has gotten worse in the past decade. Grammerly is relatively strong as a word processing aid but spell check absolutely shocks me in terms of how bad it is.
As a book author, I would love to see indexing done by AI.
Apparently it cannot do it. The process is still manual and painfully time consuming.
AI is a lie and I think many of these creators know it.
Yep, just tried it. She said 3.
I sent the following reply:
“That is incorrect. There are four E’s in the word:
S-E-V-E-N-T-E-E-N.”
For the win-she agreed that she was not correct.
Might hafta celebrate this afternoon....
LOL
Silly human.
There are NOT any e’s at all in 17.
Just tried that on Grok...
“How many e’s are in the word for 17?
The word for 17 is “seventeen,” which is spelled S-E-V-E-N-T-E-E-N.
The letter “e” appears in positions 2, 4, 7, and 8 — a total of four times.”
Obviously Grok is smarter than ChatGPT!
You can edit the custom dictionary in Windows and add or delete words..................
There are 3 in “one seven” though.
I wonder if that’s where the thing that’s supposed to be smarter than my redneck ass got 3.
ChatGPT is the worst of the bunch in my opinion. I’ve given up on it in favor of Gemini and/or Grok.
It is indeed. ChatGPT and Gemini are exceptionally retarded by AI standards.
Just wait, they will all merge..............
Why just white woman?
I've met and know some liberal black women that will make that version of Chat GPT sound like Oppenheimer.
And don't forget our Latinx systas, with breath like donkey dick.
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