Tell me AI: how does Farmer John who owns a Goat, Cabbage and a Husky cross a river to go buy a Carhartt shirt.
“Do you know the farmer crossing the river riddle?”She looked at me quizzically.
“What riddle?”
“The one where there is a farmer, and he has a goat, a wolf and a head of cabbage. He wants to cross a river, but he can only take two things at a time.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that… I don’t remember the result, though.”
“Yeah… well the correct solution is something like you take the goat across. Then come back to get the cabbage, bring it across, and swap it with the goat. Then you bring the goat back, swap with the wolf. Bring the wolf over, then go back for the goat.”
“Ah, yeah I remember!”
“It’s an old puzzle… like from the 9th century. I had to look that up on Perplexity though – Google would have worked but it’s gotten worse.”
“Yeah, And…?”
She looked at me with her eyebrows lifted way up. We were travelling by tube, with its peculiar flat lighting, and still a few stops to go to get to the restaurant. I thought it would be ok to tell the story backwards.
“I am writing a story and I want to use this puzzle.”
“Ok? Do you realise, the way you tell the story, it’s a bit frustrating. It takes quite the effort to follow.”
She was right, I liked to tell stories about ideas and try to make them feel natural. But instead, I’d often end up with elaborate scenarios.
“You are right. Ok, what if I told you I had an idea for an ad campaign for something. It could be a Kinder egg, the Eurostar or a Carhartt shirt. And that this campaign used AI but in a human crafted way?”
“Sounds interesting… not sure about the brands but go on.”
The train stopped at Cockfosters and I struggled to get stupid jokes out of my head to get back to explaining. And I think she could read my mind which made it embarrassing for a moment.
“Ok so, the advertising campaign would be something like this.”
I cleared my throat and widened my arms.
“Imagine a big billboard…”, I made a gesture.
“On the billboard we read… Artificial Intelligence will never get the brand you love. Tell me AI: how does Farmer John who owns a Goat, Cabbage and a Husky cross a river to go buy a Carhartt shirt.”
“I am not sure I get it?”
“Yeah because underneath there will be the description of what the AI answers. It will try to solve the puzzle, with lots of back and forth crossing with cabbages and goats.”
“Oh, instead the Farmer would just go buy a shirt and come back!”
“Yeah!”
The screeching of rails in the London tube made for a moment of silence. Someone with way too much luggage was preparing to get off, doors closed right after the last bit of luggage. I had somehow managed to keep her interest despite the bustle.
“I bet the ad could be tighter… But I like the idea of this kind of creative approach. It educates on AI fallibility, while promoting a product. You need the AI to exist, to create the story. But then you use its failure.”
“It is interesting… I am not sure everyone will get it. Maybe it would work better tied to a luxury brand?”
“Maybe, I really hope people wonder about the basic reason of why AI will never know how to solve this.”
We exited the tunnels up the metal ridged steps into a chilly London air. And as we were walking our way along through the mashup of crowds. She looked at me, smiled and said:
“I think some people will wonder, others will get it. We can see the context and know there is no point to the puzzle. The AI only has the millions of past examples to go on.”
I nodded, and was happy, I didn’t feel so alone anymore…
Script output from o1 (but all LLMs have similar output)
