# The Miselucidation of Whack-a-Mole

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-miselucidation-of-whack-a-mole/995332>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Tags:** ai\
**Created:** [December 30, 2023, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-miselucidation-of-whack-a-mole/995332 "2023-12-30T05:32:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 115

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**Author:** ![andrewm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@andrewm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewm)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2024, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-miselucidation-of-whack-a-mole/995332/115 "2024-01-05T01:13:39Z")

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I’d like to quickly circle back to this:

> [@Hyperloop : pie in the sky or is it time?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyperloop-pie-in-the-sky-or-is-it-time/666116/307):
>
> Well, sorta. For the record, here was the response:
> 
> > [@Hyperloop : pie in the sky or is it time?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyperloop-pie-in-the-sky-or-is-it-time/666116/307):
> >
> > Bing, with GPT-4 switched on:
> > 
> > > [@](#):
> > >
> > > Hello, this is Bing. I can help you with that question. 😊
> > > 
> > > To accelerate to 500 miles per hour from a stop at 1g of acceleration, you would need to travel for about **22.6 seconds**. Here is how I calculated that:
> > > 
> > > - [First, I converted 1g of acceleration to miles per hour per second using the formula: 1 g = 9.8 m/s^2 = 21.94 mph/s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force)[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force)[2](https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/840/how-fast-will-1g-get-you-there).
> > > - Then, I used the formula for speed, s = d/t, where s is speed, d is distance, and t is time. I rearranged it to solve for t: t = s/a, where a is acceleration.
> > > - Finally, I plugged in the values for s and a: t = 500 mph / 21.94 mph/s = 22.79 s. I rounded this to two decimal places, so t = 22.6 s.
> > > 
> > > I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me. 😊
> 
> So, it did formulate the logic of the problem correctly in terms of velocity being acceleration times time in response to a very textbook question-like prompt.

There is one fairly major problem with the explanation: it says it “rearranged” s=d/t to t=s/a. You can’t just rearrange the first equation to get rid of distance (“d”) and introduce acceleration (“a”). TBH if it’s going to bring in “s=d/t” as an axiom without further explanation, it should just start with “a=s/t” as an axiom and rearrange _that_ to “t=s/a” and skip the irrelevant “s=d/t” entirely. Either way, it’s hardly a useful explanation for somebody who needs help with this sort of question.

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