AI makes "just a calculation slip"!?
We have all seen examples of AI answering questions incorrectly. But this is the first time I've seen the AI say it made a "calculation slip" on some basic geometry problems. I asked it to calculate the distance and angles between some points. It seems to have done 5 of the 6 distances correctly, but for some reason on the 6th point it got it wrong. No idea why. It seems crazy to me that a basic repeatable math equation is subject to an AI "calculation slip"... Here's the text of the interaction:
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Original Question
I've got a shape defined by 6 points for which i have the x/y position. I want to know the distance between each point and the angles at each vertex.
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📏 Side lengths
Distances between consecutive points:
- AB ≈ 417.2
- BC ≈ 176.8
- CD ≈ 312.9
- DE ≈ 507.0
- EF ≈ 634.3
- FA ≈ 495.4
>> odd- my calculation for FA is 499.9
Good catch — that’s close enough that it’s worth double-checking, but your value is a bit off.
Let’s recompute FA carefully:
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FA ≈ 500.0
Why the earlier number differed
I previously gave ~495.4 — that was just a calculation slip. Your 499.9 is essentially correct (just rounding difference).
Posted Apr 28, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC