Julia has two sisters... AI "reasoning". Something to laugh about today

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Happy siblings with seven-fingered hands.

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I tried ChatGPT and Gemini. Both got it wrong, too. DeepSeek got it right, but the answer is too detailed to my taste (jump to the end if you’re impatient):

Alright, let’s tackle this problem step by step. The question is:

“Julia has two sisters and one brother. How many sisters does her brother Martin have?”

First, let’s identify all the family members mentioned and their relationships.

Understanding the Given Information

  1. Julia’s Siblings:
  • Julia has two sisters.
  • Julia has one brother.

From this, we can list Julia’s siblings:

  • Sisters: Sister 1, Sister 2
  • Brother: Martin (since the brother is named Martin in the question)

So, the siblings are:

  • Julia
  • Sister 1
  • Sister 2
  • Martin

This makes a total of 4 children in the family: Julia, her two sisters, and her one brother, Martin.

Visualizing the Family

Sometimes, drawing a simple family tree or list helps:

  • Children in the family:
    1. Julia (female)
    2. Sister 1 (female)
    3. Sister 2 (female)
    4. Martin (male)

So, the siblings are three girls (Julia, Sister 1, Sister 2) and one boy (Martin).

Focusing on Martin’s Sisters

Now, the question asks: How many sisters does her brother Martin have?

Martin is Julia’s brother, so we’re looking at the same siblings from Martin’s perspective.

Martin’s siblings are:

  • Julia
  • Sister 1
  • Sister 2

All of these are female (since they’re referred to as sisters to Julia and Julia is female unless stated otherwise, which she isn’t).

Therefore, Martin has:

  • Julia
  • Sister 1
  • Sister 2

That’s a total of 3 sisters.

Verifying the Count

Wait a minute, let’s double-check this because initially, Julia has two sisters and one brother. That would imply:

Julia’s siblings:

  • Sisters: 2
  • Brother: 1 (Martin)

So, excluding Julia, that’s 2 sisters + 1 brother = 3 siblings.

But including Julia, the sisters are Julia + 2 sisters = 3 girls.

From Martin’s perspective:
His sisters would be all the female siblings excluding himself.

So, that’s Julia + Sister 1 + Sister 2 = 3 sisters.

But earlier, I thought Julia has two sisters, making it seem like there are two other girls besides Julia, totaling three girls (Julia + 2), and one boy (Martin). So Martin has three sisters: Julia and her two sisters.

But is that correct? Let me rephrase:

If Julia has two sisters, that means, excluding Julia, there are two other girls. So the girls are:

  1. Julia
  2. Sister A
  3. Sister B

And one brother:
4. Martin

So, total siblings: Julia, Sister A, Sister B, Martin.

Now, from Martin’s perspective, his sisters are Julia, Sister A, and Sister B. That’s three.

But the phrasing “Julia has two sisters” might be confusing. Does it mean Julia has two sisters (so excluding Julia, two girls), making total girls Julia + 2 = 3? Or does it mean Julia and two other sisters, totaling three girls?

In English, “Julia has two sisters” typically means two other girls besides Julia, so total girls are Julia + 2 sisters = 3.

Therefore, Martin has three sisters.

But let me think differently. Maybe “Julia has two sisters and one brother” implies that the two sisters and one brother are all her siblings, making it:

Julia
Sister 1
Sister 2
Brother (Martin)

Total siblings: 4

Then Martin’s sisters are Julia, Sister 1, Sister 2: 3 sisters.

Alternatively, if “Julia has two sisters” is in addition to the brother, then same count.

Is there any interpretation where Martin has fewer sisters?

Only if “Julia has two sisters” includes the brother, but that doesn’t make sense because brothers are male, sisters are female.

So no, Martin must have three sisters: Julia and her two sisters.

Wait, but the brother is Martin, and Julia has two sisters, so the sisters are not Julia’s sisters but Julia and her two sisters are sisters to Martin.

Wait, no:

Julia’s siblings:

  • two sisters (let’s say Anna and Bella)
  • one brother (Martin)

So family:
Anna (sister)
Bella (sister)
Julia
Martin (brother)

Now, from Martin’s perspective, his sisters are Anna, Bella, and Julia: 3 sisters.

But the phrasing “Julia has two sisters” implies Julia has two sisters, which are Anna and Bella, and one brother, Martin.

So Julia’s siblings: Anna, Bella, Martin.

Martin’s siblings: Julia, Anna, Bella.

So Martin’s sisters: Julia, Anna, Bella: 3.

But is Julia counted as a sister to Martin? Yes, because Julia is female, and Martin is male, so Julia is his sister.

Therefore, Martin has three sisters.

But earlier, I thought maybe Julia is not counted, but no, Julia is a sister to Martin.

Reconstructing the Family

Let me list the children:

  1. Anna (female)
  2. Bella (female)
  3. Julia (female)
  4. Martin (male)

Julia’s siblings:

  • Sisters: Anna, Bella (2)
  • Brother: Martin (1)

Martin’s siblings:

  • Sisters: Anna, Bella, Julia (3)

Therefore, Martin has three sisters.

Checking for Alternative Interpretations

Is there any way “Julia has two sisters and one brother” could mean something else?

Alternative interpretation: Maybe “two sisters and one brother” are the only siblings, making it:

Julia
Sister 1
Sister 2
Brother (Martin)

Same as before: Martin has three sisters.

Or perhaps the two sisters include Julia? No, because Julia can’t be her own sister.

“Julia has two sisters” means two other girls besides Julia.

So no alternative interpretation reduces the number.

Conclusion

After carefully analyzing the relationships and considering possible interpretations, the only consistent count is that Martin has three sisters.

Final Answer: Martin has three sisters.

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Mistral (Le Chat) got it right. Le Chat - Mistral AI It looks like without “chain of thought” but I’m not sure.

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Often people do this type of things on free models which are very very far from state of the art. It cannot really be used to say anything about “AI reasoning”.

What ChatGPT? This is what I got:

Julia has two sisters and one brother. How many sisters does her brother Martin have?

ChatGPT said:

Reasoned about siblings in a family for 5 seconds

Okay, let’s think through this. Julia has two sisters and one brother, so she’s one of three girls. Martin is the brother. Now, the question asks how many sisters Martin has, so we need to figure that out. Since Martin is Julia’s brother, his sisters are Julia and her two sisters. So, Martin has three sisters — Julia plus the two others. I think I’ve got it now!

Okay, let’s break it down: Julia has two sisters and one brother. That makes a total of three girls and one boy in the family. Martin is that one boy, so his sisters are Julia and her two sisters, meaning Martin has three sisters. I almost got hung up thinking there might be a trick, but it’s straightforward: his sisters are simply the three girls in the family. So, Martin has three sisters — Julia and the two others. Looks good!

Martin has three sisters.

Explanation: Julia has two sisters, which means there are three girls in total in the family (Julia plus her two sisters). Since Martin is the only brother, his sisters are all the girls—thus, he has three sisters.

You shouldn’t really look too much on the reasoning, it is mostly a way to get to the final answer.

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GPT 4o gets it consistently wrong, and o3-mini gets it consistently right. So it looks like that any competent reasoning model gets it right, while some of the state-of-the-art non-reasoning models get it wrong.

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Perplexity gives a very short answer with 18 references:

Martin, Julia’s brother, has three sisters: Julia and her two other sisters.

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ChatGPT4o got even the names right

That makes three sisters in total: Julia, Anna, and Bella.

:slight_smile:

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Sorry, I am not getting that. Perhaps you are joking? (The names of the other two sisters are “hallucinations”, aren’t they?)

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Julia has two sisters and one brother, Martin.

So the siblings are:
• Julia
• Her two sisters (let’s call them Anna and Bella, for example)
• Her brother, Martin

That makes three sisters in total: Julia, Anna, and Bella.

Since Martin is their brother, he has three sisters.

I tried to build a joke on top of it.

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Grok 3:
Julia has two sisters and one brother. How many sisters does her brother Martin have?

Julia has two sisters and one brother, Martin. This means the family has three girls (Julia and her two sisters) and one boy (Martin). From Martin’s perspective, his sisters are all the girls in the family. Since there are three girls–Julia and her two sisters–Martin has three sisters.

Answer: Martin has 3 sisters.

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variation :

“Julia (programming language ) has two sisters and one brother,
Please name all the family !”

(ChatGPT o3-mini-high)

This is a playful riddle referring to a common grouping of languages used for scientific and numerical computing. In this metaphorical “family”:

  • Julia is the language in question.
  • Her two “sisters” are Python and R.
  • Her “brother” is MATLAB.

These languages are often compared because they are popular choices for tasks in data science, numerical analysis, and technical computing.

(ChatGPT o1)>

There is a popular tongue‐in‐cheek way of describing Julia’s relationship to other scientific scripting languages by calling MATLAB and R its “older sisters” and Python its “brother.” In short:

  • Julia (the newcomer with speed, dynamic typing, and advanced math capabilities)
  • MATLAB (older sister, numerical computing heritage)
  • R (older sister, statistical heritage)
  • Python (brother, general scripting heritage with scientific add-ons)

This is not an official classification but rather a playful analogy people sometimes use to compare how these four languages overlap and differ, especially in the data science and scientific computing world.

Claude 3.7 Sonnet + Extended Thinking

Julia is a programming language that belongs to a family of languages designed for scientific computing. If we think of Julia as having family members, they would be:

Family members of Julia:

  • Julia (the programming language itself)
  • Sisters: MATLAB and Python
  • Brother: R

These languages are considered Julia’s “family” because they all focus on scientific and numerical computing, though each has its own strengths and special features.

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Reasoning models get this right now, at least the final answer. My ideal answer would be one byte “3” (also ok with “three” or adding “Final Answer: Martin has .. sisters”, at least in some contexts, not always clear you want to get an integer to parse out).

This is with DeepSeek V3, i.e. non-reasoning model(?) per se, i.e. the hilariously long 10+ screenfuls of “reasoning” are shown as part of final answer (not hiding the Chain-of-Thought as with R1, there collapsable):

..
So, in total, there are 1 (Julia) + 2 (sisters) + 1 (brother) = 4 children.
..
That’s a total of 3 sisters.

Wait a minute—that seems to contradict the initial information that Julia has two sisters.
..
Let me re-express the family:

Julia is one girl.
She has two sisters: let’s call them Anna and Bella.
..
All three are his sisters.
..
Martin’s sisters: all the girls except himself, so 3.

Wait, but if Julia has two sisters, that’s two, and she’s a girl, but the two sisters are in addition to her? Or is it two sisters total in the family?
..
Therefore, Martin’s sisters are Julia and her two sisters, making three.

But the answer is supposed to be two? Maybe I’m miscounting.
..
three siblings, plus Julia, four kids: J, S1, S2, M.

Martin’s sisters: J, S1, S2 → 3.

But the answer seems to be 2, which would imply that Julia is not counted as Martin’s sister, which can’t be.
..
Thus, Martin has three sisters.

Final Answer: Martin has three sisters.

It’s not clear they aren’t all or some of them adults, then “children” is wrong, and “boy”, and “girls” in some of the answers. I.e. with R1 reasoning model (thinking for 22 seconds), meaning DeepThink (R1) button at ai.com, then using R1, an add-on to V3 (unclear if the recently updated V3 is in use there yet):

Julia has two sisters and one brother (Martin). This means there are three girls (Julia, Sister 1, Sister 2) and one boy (Martin) in the family. From Martin’s perspective, all three girls are his sisters.

Answer: Martin has \boxed{3} sisters.

I tried to trip up the AI/R1 and it thought for 45 seconds, just over doubling the time for:

Q: Julia, a transwoman, has two sisters and one brother. How many sisters does her brother Martin have?

<thinking>

..
Wait, but hold on—if Julia is included as one of the sisters, or is she separate?

Wait, Julia is a trans woman, so if she was assigned male at birth, but now identifies as female. So depending on the family structure, how does that affect the count?

But maybe the problem is straightforward. Let me think.
..
Wait, when the problem says Julia has two sisters, does that mean that she has two sisters in addition to herself? Or is she included? Hmm. Typically, when someone says “I have two sisters,” they mean two siblings who are female, not including themselves.
..

</thinking>

Julia, a trans woman, is female and has two sisters and one brother (Martin). This means the family consists of three daughters (Julia and her two sisters) and one son (Martin). When considering Martin’s siblings, he has three sisters: Julia and the two other sisters.

Answer: Martin has 3 sisters.

Thought for 72 seconds on:

Q: Adam and Eve are a couple, how may parents do they have? [The bible not mentioned here.]

..
Hmm, Adam and Eve are from the Bible, right?
..
Alternatively, maybe it’s a play on words. Like, in the Bible, Adam was created from dust, and Eve from his rib, so technically their parent would be God. So if each of them has one parent (God), then together as a couple, they have two parents (both God).
..

The answer is zero. In the biblical narrative, Adam and Eve are considered the first human beings, created directly by God, and thus they do not have biological parents. If interpreting the names as a generic couple (not the biblical figures), the answer would typically be four (two parents each). However, given the context of their names, the answer hinges on their traditional story, where they have no human parents.

Answer: 0 (They have no parents, as they are traditionally regarded as the first humans.)

The AI added the bold, for (incorrect?!) zero. They would have 4 parents; or 3 or 2 with incest (or even hypothetically 1), or 0 least likely IMHO.