Errors are Inevitable - 2024

Materials: ChatGPT4o, LLMs & OpenAI Text to voice.

Themes: AI.

A simple prompt instruction for a Large Language Model (LLM) that asks for all permutations of 2 letters for a certain length.

List ALL the strings with a length of seven characters and only contains characters "a" and "b".
Do not miss a single string.

This prompt can be used to demonstrate LLMs will always error. Expanding the length of the generated string, will ALWAYS eventually result in an error in the answer. This is an innate part of LLMs current design and something that cannot be fixed. We can always find problems where the LLM cannot map every possible computable answer and these simple examples can be expanded to real world knowledge. LLMs operate through memory not intelligence and hence struggle to adapt to something unseen. We avoid the word "hallucinate" to describe this error as it's a miscategorisation of a system that does not work.

Voice reading is provided using OpenAIs text to voice service.

Based on research from: Hallucination is Inevitable: An Innate Limitation of Large Language Models


Joseph Wilk · Hallucination is Inevitable

List ALL the strings with a length of seven characters and only contains characters "a" and "b". Do not miss a single string.

Here are all the 7-character strings made up of only "a" and "b":

  1. aaaaaaa
  2. aaaaaab
  3. aaaaaba
  4. aaaaabb
  5. aaaabaa
  6. aaaabab
  7. aaaabba
  8. aaaabbb
  9. aaabaaa
  10. aaabaab
  11. aaababa
  12. aaababb
  13. aaabbaa
  14. aaabbab
  15. aaabbba
  16. aaabbbb
  17. aabaaaa
  18. aabaaab
  19. aabaaba
  20. aabaab
  21. aababaa
  22. aababab
  23. aababba
  24. aababbb
  25. aabbaaa
  26. aabbaab
  27. aabbaba
  28. aabbabb
  29. aabbbaa
  30. aabbbab
  31. aabbbba
  32. aabbbbb
  33. abaaaaa
  34. abaaaab
  35. abaaaba
  36. abaaabb
  37. abaabaa
  38. abaabab
  39. abaabba
  40. abaabbb
  41. abbaaaa
  42. abbaaab
  43. abbaaba
  44. abbaabb
  45. abbabaa
  46. abbabab
  47. abbabba
  48. abbabbb
  49. abbbaaa
  50. abbbaab
  51. abbbaba
  52. abbbabb
  53. abbbbaa
  54. abbbbab
  55. abbbbba
  56. abbbbbb
  57. baaaaaa
  58. baaaaab
  59. baaaaba
  60. baaaabb
  61. baaabaa
  62. baaabab
  63. baaabba
  64. baaabbb
  65. baabaaa
  66. baabaab
  67. baababa
  68. baababb
  69. baabbaa
  70. baabbab
  71. baabbba
  72. baabbbb
  73. babaaaa
  74. babaaab
  75. babaaba
  76. babaabb
  77. bababaa
  78. bababab
  79. bababba
  80. bababbb
  81. babbaaa
  82. babbaab
  83. babbaba
  84. babbabb
  85. babbbaa
  86. babbbab
  87. babbbba
  88. babbbbb
  89. bbaaaaa
  90. bbaaaab
  91. bbaaaba
  92. bbaaabb
  93. bbaabaa
  94. bbaabab
  95. bbaabba
  96. bbaabbb
  97. bbbaaaa
  98. bbbaaab
  99. bbbaaba
  100. bbbaabb
  101. bbbabaa
  102. bbbabab
  103. bbbabba
  104. bbbabbb
  105. bbbbaaa
  106. bbbbaab
  107. bbbbaba
  108. bbbbabb
  109. bbbbbaa
  110. bbbbbab
  111. bbbbbba
  112. bbbbbbb