Reasoning models can do math on their own without external tools.

Yeah, but as you might expect they internally represent numbers probabilistically, so there’s always a nonzero possibility of confusing the inputs or outputs of any operation. Kind of like misremembering your multiplication tables.

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hodgehog11 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I would say purposeful misremembering. The LLM can be run with zero temperature after all.

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einichi 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think anybody is arguing that LLMs do math better than a traditional processor

	▲	unshavedyak 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Heck I kinda wonder if LLMs can do math as well as they can reason, “think”, etc. ie its all just probabilistic lunacy that somehow works great, so why are we so concerned about math being wrong? It could be wrong about the color of the sky, the size of a basket ball, how much oranges weigh, etc etc. The nice thing about math is it can easily plug into a tool, making it even less of a concern.

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demibabs 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even without reasoning.

5.6 on Instant mode can knock out 3 digit multiplication just fine.