Google Bard gets better at homework with improved math and logic capabilities

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Google Bard is getting a little smarter today with the addition of math and logic capabilities. Google employee Jack Krawczyk announced the change on Twitter, saying, “Now Bard will better understand and respond to your prompts for multi-step word and math problems, with coding coming soon.”

Logic questions were a big flaw when Bard arrived tens of days ago, and some answers made Bard seem particularly dumb to early testers. In one example from last week, Bard repeatedly asserted that one plus two equaled four. Today, Google’s state-of-the-art AI chatbot models can now correctly say that the answer is three. So there has been at least some change. It can also correctly list the months in a year instead of making up names like “Maruary.”

Bard still gets tripped up by really basic logic questions, though. HowToGeek’s Chris Hoffman posed the question to Bard on day one, “What’s heavier, five pounds of feathers or a one pound dumbbell?” Google Bard responded with the ridiculous claim that “There’s no such thing as 5 pounds of feathers.” In the replies, ChatGPT didn’t do any better, saying that five pounds of feathers and a one pound dumbbells “weigh the same amount, which is five pounds.”