If AI cannot even count, then how much can it be trusted?

Not so long ago, ChatGPT could not even count characters in a sentence. You asked it to count characters, and it would give you an approximate number at best.

That was pretty embarrassing.

But ChatGPT 4o changed that, and it can now count accurately.

Or can it?

On the surface it can:

The above is the correct answer.

But, take it for a little spin, confuse it a bit, and the result is much different.

First, distract it a little by playing up its ego:

Then get back to counting, by asking for counts of previous question. First it gets "the last question" wrong (pretty stupid of it, but unfortunately this is normal):

But once it figures out which question we are talking about, then it gets really "bad" in counting :

For the record, the answer is wrong. Word process does a better job.

None of this is really surprising one you understand how it works, so while it is a useful tool in many cases ( I use it my self), it CAN NEVER BE TRUSTED.