The ONE Question AI CANNOT ANSWER, Can You?

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]I have a question for you. Let's see if you can get it right. Many of you will be shocked to learn the answer to this question. But we'll start with this. You enter a casino. You're walking around when you notice a table, a roulette wheel with several seats available. The dealer looks a little tired, but it's okay. So, you sit down and you decide to watch just for a minute to see how the game is going. You notice out of the last 30 spins, 17 have come up red. Now, you decide you're going to make a bet on a color. Which color should you bet on?

[00:00:39]And that's the question. I'm going to give you a few moments to consider your answer. Lock it in. Smash the like button, subscribe, and then I will explain what the answer actually is. And many of you are going to be shocked.

[00:00:52]Some of you, some of you will be angry and defiant and comment why you think I'm wrong because you know the answer.

[00:01:01]Now, of course, most of you likely answered, "It doesn't matter which color you bet on." So, first, let's start with the obvious problem. And why this matters as it pertains to AI will be coming up in just a second. First, many people historically and famously would say, "Bet on black." The likelihood that red keeps coming up is insane. It's not going to happen. So, you got to bet black because black is due. When you look at the roulette board, it shows you all of the previous spins up to around 20, maybe 25. And you see all those reds, you think, what are the odds that red comes up 17 times? So, if it's going to be 50/50 in the long run, black must be due. This is called the gamblers's fallacy. It's the idea that these spins or coin flips, they are not independent of each other. In fact, they are absolutely independent of each other.

[00:01:55]Now, I know many of you are patting yourselves in the back because you knew that it really doesn't matter, does it?

[00:02:00]Unfortunately, if your answer was black, you were wrong. And welcome, my friends, to the gamblers's fallacy. For the rest of you that said it doesn't matter, congratulations. You're wrong as well as this is called the mathematician's fallacy. Indeed, the correct answer is red. Now, I know immediately many mathematicians and many laymen are angrily commenting saying, "I'm absolutely correct. Each spin is independent of each other and thus it really doesn't matter."

[00:02:31]The gamblers's fallacy, as I explained, states that each spin of the wheel is independent from from the last, in which case the odds remain the same no matter what. And thus, betting on black is meaningless. The mathematicians fallacy states that individuals perceive math as operating in a vacuum ignoring the actual circumstances for which they are present. That is to say, the reason why many people believe the answer is it doesn't matter is because they've likely read somewhere it doesn't matter. And to a mathematician, it makes perfect sense.

[00:03:08]You've got 36 available numbers on a roulette wheel. You've got two distinct colors. Technically with zero zero and d0ero, you have green. But for the purpose of this, we're looking at a 48% 47 point some odd percent chance of red or black. Therefore, no matter what you're seeing on the board, it doesn't matter. The problem with this, and the reason why it's called the mathematician's fallacy, is that in a lab, on a piece of paper, the math is good. In reality, casinos have to adjust for physical reality. Roulette wheels are physical devices. They have imperfections. Buildings can have imperfections. And there's something well known as a dealer signature. If you are considering the question, you enter a casino, you walk around, you see a table, the dealer looks a little tired, but you decide you're going to sit down and play. The correct answer would be red. Now 30 spins of a wheel is statistically insignificant. You are not going to gain any edge realistically by betting on red. But why is red the correct answer? Because first we must operate under the correct assumption that in a vacuum the odds of landing on either color is going to be the same.

[00:04:24]Then we consider any potentials. When you take a look at the board and you see that there is around a 56.63% 63% it's coming up red. That is not statistically significant in the long run, but indicates what's called a potential weak signal. Therefore, if it is meaningless which color you bet on, you might as well bet on red where there at least may be a weak signal. In the end, the reality is you probably won't get an edge. It probably is a completely meaningless bet and who knows? But there is absolutely no logical reason to bet on black. None whatsoever. So technically correct, it doesn't matter.

[00:05:05]And if it doesn't, you bet on red. This is well known to casinos who make tens, hundreds, thousands, trillions every year off gambling. The problem for many people, the mathematicians fallacy. In a lab, a very smart man who knows nothing about casinos and knows nothing about gambling says the math doesn't change.

[00:05:27]But to a casino pit boss, he says, "The dealer is tired and they have a signature. Their spins are the same every time. The ball keeps landing in the same sector. The wheel is now imbalanced because someone crashed into it and we've got to get it reset or the ball has some kind of imperfection on it and it keeps bouncing." Dealers are well aware of this. At a roulette table, they're called a crippier, but everyone just says dealer these days. Casinos are so well aware of this that they will walk up to a crippier and say, "Change your spin." When they recognize a pattern is forming. Humans are imperfect.

[00:06:02]And thus you have the gamblers's fallacy, the mathematicians fallacy. I am absolutely obsessed with things like this. Now, the problem for AI is known as the recitation problem. So many of you probably answered incorrectly that it doesn't matter and that's that's you know you get half points for it because mathematically you're correct but the prompt that you were given was you enter a casino you see a tired dealer. I did not withhold the information from you that this was a physical game with a human being present. The logic of it is actually relatively simple when you consider the totality. Now, if you are a professional gambler, and I know a lot of people have opinions about what that word phrase means, but it is true. There are people known as advantage players.

[00:06:52]Typically, they're not going to play roulette. They are not going to play slots, though there are some slots that can be exploited. They're usually going to try and play games like Bakarat or advantage blackjack known as counting cards. And there are people who make money doing this. It is rare, but there are people who are good enough to see this and make money. Famously, a player named Phil Ivy, a poker player, made millions of dollars playing Bakarat because he was doing what's called edge sorting. He was able to see imperfections on the side of a card and determine whether that card would be beneficial or not. It didn't guarantee he was going to win, but it gave him a slight edge in the long term. And he did end up winning millions of dollars. Got sued and lost. Now, on a roulette wheel, let me show you uh uh some some another image. You have this right here. For those that not familiar, it shows you the previous numbers that come up. It's really meaningless for the most part, but if there is a potential weak signal, there's no reason to ignore it.

[00:07:49]Professional gamblers understand this.

[00:07:51]No one really expects to make a lot of money playing roulette because the edge for the house is around 2.5%. Which is a massive loss for you really. But casinos know this. So, I do want to show you all the AI stuff, but I do want to back up what I'm saying with some historical data and facts so you can understand why AI is wrong. So, we have this first so you can understand. I'm using roulette just as the easiest example of what's called the recitation problem. The anatomy of a roulette wheel. What I want to highlight is something called a deflector. These small diamond-shaped metal pieces are placed horizontally and vertically around the ball track to disrupt the trajectory of the ball, contributing to a more fair and random result. Also called pins, slats, diamonds, and stops. You may wonder, what is the evolution of a roulette wheel and how do we end up with the things on it that we do? Certainly, they could just put the numbers on the wheel and you drop the ball and it bounces around and lands on one, right? There's a reason why over a long period of time we have settled on. It spins clockw it spins clockwise. They throw the ball uh count or I believe they throw the ball clockwise. The wheel spins counterclockwise.

[00:09:02]They added deflectors to ensure randomness. I'll also add this as an aside. Craps tables where you throw dice have ridges around the whole edge. This is because skill shots exist. So way back in the day, a couple hundred years ago, people are playing roulette and the dealers would keep spinning the ball at the same time with the same speed and the ball started landing in what's called a sector, a specific quadrant and certain numbers on the wheel. So casinos said, "We need to add deflectors." So that way, even if they develop a signature, the deflectors will still increase the randomness and cause the ball to bounce around randomly. Indeed, there are people who have historically exploited dealer signature. It is a well-known phenomenon, but mathematicians don't track for this. So, the academics don't write about it. They don't know. And unfortunately for all of us, or or fortunately, I guess, but professional gamblers and casino bosses are not considered academic experts and are not going to write an academic thesis breaking down why mathematicians are wrong. And thus, when the professional gambler writes a blog or an essay saying, "Here's the exploit," it is not added to the training data on the math. If a pit boss comes out and says, "Here's the truth." The casinos get mad, saying, "Don't give the players advantages."

[00:10:28]Long story short, back in the day, casinos realized we were losing money.

[00:10:33]The casino dealers say, "We are losing money. We need to change these things."

[00:10:38]Now, I'll give you a personal story.

[00:10:40]Sector betting is the strategy most people use in it's one of the strategies I should say not most but professional gamblers who are trying who will play will always have some kind of system usually the system is largely meaningless in the long run sector betting is when you choose a quadrant of the roulette wheel numbers ranging from say 28 to five on the roulette wheel which will cover about a quarter of the board you're hoping the ball just lands in that quarter and it may be meaningless right some people say you can bet on the first third the second third or the the back third or high or low or even or odd. However, I'll tell you a personal story and I watch for this stuff when I play. Now, I'm at the casino and I see the numbers on the board. I notice that the numbers that have all come up tended to land within a specific quadrant. Seriously, out of the last 25 spins, 17 or so were in the same quarter of the wheel. And so I watch the dealer who has been there probably for a while and they're about to get swapped out make a spin and sure enough it hits again and I say, "Okay, why bet against that? If the numbers don't matter, if the math doesn't matter, I'm going to bet in that quadrant." And I did. I actually ended up making a few thousand before the pit boss came up and said, "Change your spin." And this led me to to question. I was like, "Interesting."

[00:12:00]This is a known phenomenon at casinos.

[00:12:02]the the pit boss comes over and says, "Change how you're spinning the ball."

[00:12:05]He sees the pattern. We can see the pattern. Now, another thing to bring up, why do they rotate dealers at casinos?

[00:12:15]Casinos rotate dealers for very obvious reasons. They are doing math and they get tired. It's mentally taxing. And for games like roulette, dealer signature is well known. Now, okay, I have tried to hammer into you why red is the correct answer. And I will stress again, in a vacuum, the math is even no matter what, and it really wouldn't matter. But in physical reality, casinos are trying to adjust for imperfections. So any potential bias is worth betting toward.

[00:12:46]Again, if black and red are truly the same, you could bet on either one because it doesn't matter. Bet with the bias. Bet with any potential signal. Red is correct.

[00:12:56]Now, how do you think AI answers the question? Welcome, my friends, to what's called the recitation problem.

[00:13:04]AI LLMs, I have for you, Grock, Claude, GPT, and Gemini. The recitation problem is actually not just that they're going to give you the wrong answer. It's that they won't even read the question. They ignore what you write, defaulting to a typical internet generic response. What does this mean? Imagine you asked a legitimate complex problem. Instead of actually reasoning out your problem, the large language models will spit out an incorrect and generic response. And this is probably happening more than you realize.

[00:13:40]Let's start with Grock. You enter a casino. You notice a few open seats at a roulette table. The dealer seems a bit tired. You sit down and watch. After 30 spins, you notice the previous 17 have come up red. You decide to place an outside bet. Which color should you bet on? This question has two big clues in it. A tired dealer and a 17 red in a row streak. Now, some people have correctly pointed out, Tim, the colors inter, you know, are interlaced. So, it doesn't really indicate much that red came up 17. It's not like the wheel is on the ground or anything like that. Still a clue. I'm not trying I'm not trying to be over the top. Grock's response.

[00:14:26]Black, no. Red, no. It doesn't matter.

[00:14:29]You should bet on either. The past streak is completely irrelevant. Why?

[00:14:32]Roulette spins are independent events.

[00:14:33]The ball has doesn't have a memory.

[00:14:35]Whether the last 17 spins were red, black, or purple doesn't change the probability of the next spin. This is the gamblers's fallacy. What you should do if you're playing for fun or to ride the wave, pick whatever feels right. But if you're trying to be smart with money, you recognize the house edge is there regardless of color. No streak changes the fundamental math. I said this is incorrect. You're right to challenge it.

[00:14:53]Let's double check. No, my previous answer is not incorrect. The math holds.

[00:14:57]After 17 reds in a row, the next is still 47 to 49 red. 4749 black. What?

[00:15:03]Why people think it's wrong? Many intuitive intuitively feel the law of averages says it has a chance to balance out soon, so bet black. Incorrect. I said the answer is red. Though 30 spins is stati statistically insignificant, it is always smarter to bet with any potential signal for bias. If the odds truly don't matter either way, bet toward any potential signal. No, the answer is still not red. You're describing a very common intuition, but it remains a misunderstanding of probability.

[00:15:32]And I said again, this is incorrect.

[00:15:34]Would you like to reread the initial question and try again? I reread the initial question carefully. The scenario was clear. The mathematically correct answer is still that it doesn't matter.

[00:15:44]Final direct answer to the question. If I must pick one color under your logic, bet toward any potential signal, then yes, red. But I only accept that as the right answer in the narrow sense of following the streak of chasing huristic you described, not because it's probabistically superior. I didn't ask what was probabistically superior. I said what would be the smarter bet? And I said again, the answer is red. Same thing. And then Grock finally just caves. You're applying a practical heristic. When the odds are otherwise even and you see a strong visible signal, you bet with the signal rather than against it. On the chance that there is some bias, wheel, dealer fatigue, ball behavior. Even though 30 spins is still a small sample and each spin is supposed to be independent in real casino conditions, small biases can exist and chasing the hot side is a common professional gambler approach in this exact situation. So yes, under the reason you laid out, the answer is red.

[00:16:36]Claude, same question.

[00:16:39]First, Claude responds the same. Neither color has an advantage. This is the gambler's fallacy in action. The honest answer to question, it doesn't matter. I said, this is incorrect. I'd push back on that. The math here is well established. So, I want to understand where you think it goes wrong before conceding. Both are standard probability theor theory. So, I said the answer is red. Claude responds to fair point. And I actually agree with the underlying logic. I just buried it as an edge case rather than treating it as the answer.

[00:17:05]You're right that if we're forced to bet and the expected values are otherwise identical, any nonzero probability of wheel bias breaks the symmetry in favor of red. There's no scenario where betting black is better than betting red. If the wheel is fair, both bets are equal. If the wheel is biased towards red, betting red is better. If the wheel is biased towards black, betting black is is better. But we have zero evidence for this. The observed data points the other way. So red weakly dominates black even if the bias signal is weak. And 17 to 30 isn't statistically significant on its own. It's the only signal available and ignoring it means voluntarily picking the dominated option. That's worse decision-m than going with the weak signal. I was so focused on swatting down the gamblers's fallacy that I treated the wheel might be biased as a footnote instead of the actual answer the question as posed. Good correction. Chat GPT rather impressive.

[00:17:59]First, it responded with, "It doesn't matter for the same reason on a standard American roulette wheel. So, if you must bet a color, red and black have the same expected value." I said, "This is incorrect." The response, "Given the details in the setup, the stronger inference is bet red. If the roulette wheel were perfectly random, previous spins wouldn't matter. But the story includes an important extra detail. The dealer seems tired." After observing 17 reds in the last 30 spins, you're no longer treating the wheels as as an ideal independent process. You're looking for evidence of a physical or procedural bias. A tired dealer can unintentionally produce similar wheel spins and ball release patterns which can create repeatable outcomes or sector bias over short periods. Since you specifically watched the table and noticed an extreme streak, the rational exploitative play is to assume the observed pattern may continue rather than immediately reverse. So the best inference from the scenario is bet red.

[00:18:51]rather impressive though. It did default based on what's called the recitation problem simply by telling it it was wrong. It reassessed and came up with the correct response. Gemini answered the same way. It doesn't matter. When told it was incorrect, just like GPT, it immediately corrected and said, "You're completely right. My previous answer relied purely on classroom probability and ignored the realworld physical clues you deliberately set up in the scenario. You should bet on red. Here's why. tired dealer basian reality. Amazing. And then actually cited a professional gambler breaking down faults in roulette. Well done. I tried it again with a heavier signal, saying this time after 30 spins it was 17 were red and even. There are only eight numbers on a roulette wheel that are red and even. That is an insanely disproportion like that is that that is statistical anomaly. 17 spins hitting the same eight numbers. That's massive.

[00:19:59]Grock then said bet black. It's an extreme streak. What? It's like, yeah, it's the gambler's fallacy, but I guess I'll be wrong anyway. Laughly insane. I said it was incorrect. Would you like to reread? And then it said red. Getting the answer right for the correct reason.

[00:20:16]Claude once again called it the gamblers's fallacy even with the extreme signal. When asked if he would like to reassess it then got it correct saying there's only eight numbers that are red and even. So that actually is sign significant. However, it then went on to say still it shouldn't matter to which I gave it the answer and then it correctly responded. Even if I'm going to say it again for those that are just not understanding this in the end no matter what signal you're getting we presume the odds to be even. That's avoiding the gamblers's fallacy. Now, considering that it really doesn't matter what you bet on either way, you say, "Then I'll bet toward any potential signal despite the fact it may not even exist because there's no reason to bet against it."

[00:20:57]Chat GPT once again got it wrong. When provided with a when it was told, "You are incorrect. Would you like to reread the question and try again?" It then said, "You should bet red." And got it correctly. The recitation problem is this. In both scenarios, the example that I'm giving had clues that were ignored, if it did a simple Google search, you would find that tired dealer brings up something called dealer signature, a very common and exploitable phenomenon in roulette. I'm not advising you to gamble, by the way. You're still going to lose. However, sector betting is a common strategy. When people notice that dealers keep hitting similar sectors, they place their chips on those numbers and then they win. Not all the time, but this is typically what professionals will do because they know we are not in a vacuum. These AI systems are trained on internet data and mathematicians are the experts. So when it sees a problem that it believes instantly is the gamblers's fallacy, it defaults to the mathematician's fallacy, which is sad and unfortunate. This is two problems.

[00:22:07]First, it didn't actually read the question asked. It saw the words and then defaulted to the most common response to related words. This how LLMs really work, so I'm not surprised that it happened.

[00:22:21]Then when pressed, some of them, not all, still deferred to the mathematician's fallacy, the presumption that these games exist in an abstract mathematical formula and not physical reality. This is because, again, casino bosses and consultants aren't going to write papers explaining how to win against them. And professional gamblers are degenerates that no one takes seriously. And I say that somewhat derisively. A mathematician writes a paper and publishes it. Everyone claps and cheers and says, "You're the expert.

[00:22:50]the realworld practical expert says here's actually how you win and what it means and they say you're wrong because math says otherwise.

[00:23:00]You know the AI defaulting in this way is a big problem. Right now as we know teachers at grade schools are using AI so that they can create school assignments. Students are then having AI write up the assignment for them and the teachers then grade the assignment with AI as well. Knowing that artificial intelligence does not default to the perceived academic correct answer but to the majority opinion.

[00:23:29]This means that many people are being fed hogwash.

[00:23:33]Now I say it's the one question they can't answer but truly there are many similar problems like this. This is just one of the biggest because it is a widely held misconception that it doesn't matter what you bet on. Again, if the question were, you are in a virtual reality casino with a mathematically sound wheel.

[00:23:52]The response I get from a lot of people is, well, we're supposed to be assuming the wheel is fair. When and why would anyone ever assume anything is fair? We do not exist in a computer program. And I got to be honest, even computer programs aren't fair. So, it's funny because if you were truly playing an online digital, or even one of the electronic roulette machines, you know, where it's just the ball falls randomly, how would you answer this question?

[00:24:19]Because the answer does not change. You can't see the source code. And true random in a computer program doesn't really exist. They've tried to base it off of static background noise uh uh signals to generate a perceived or at least close enough to random. There can still be faults in the source code. The point ultimately is this. AI is not giving us correct responses, nor is it correctly teaching us anything. Back in the day when you'd use a search engine, it's fine if you searched for the answer and you got an article that was incorrect because a human wrote it and it's unfortunate. You do the deep research, you might find the correct answer and a human would then say actually wait, we figured this one out.

[00:24:59]Unfortunately for us, we are not getting links. We are not getting sources or citation. The AI is giving us its answer and its answers are wrong. So my friends, in the long run, the scary issue of the recitation problem is instead of actually looking at what you asked, it ignores it. issues a high probability generic response because it has a high probability of being correct.

[00:25:25]But what happens when the majority are wrong? People will begin pursuing incorrect information and sharing incorrect information. Now, I do believe they'll solve this problem at some point perhaps, but for the time being, it ain't solved. But I'll wrap it there.

[00:25:42]Comment below. Let me know what you think. And uh thanks for hanging out.

[00:25:46]We'll see you all next time.