Recent AI model progress feels mostly like bullshit

My mom told me yesterday that Paul Newman had massive problems with alcohol. I was somewhat skeptical, so this morning I asked ChatGPT a very simple question:

"Is Paul Newman known for having had problems with alcohol?"

All of the models up to o3-mini-high told me he had no known problems. Here's o3-mini-high's response:

"Paul Newman is not widely known for having had problems with alcohol. While he portrayed characters who sometimes dealt with personal struggles on screen, his personal life and public image were more focused on his celebrated acting career, philanthropic work, and passion for auto racing rather than any issues with alcohol. There is no substantial or widely reported evidence in reputable biographies or interviews that indicates he struggled with alcohol abuse."

There is plenty of evidence online that he struggled a lot with alcohol, including testimony from his long-time wife Joanne Woodward.

I sent my mom the ChatGPT reply and in five minutes she found an authoritative source to back her argument [1].

I use ChatGPT for many tasks every day, but I couldn't fathom that it would get so wrong something so simple.

Lesson(s) learned... Including not doubting my mother's movie trivia knowledge.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/24/who-paul-newma...

For questions like this, you need to tell the bot to search the web.

> Hi, can you search the web and find out if Paul Newman has any alcohol problems?

> Paul Newman, the acclaimed actor and philanthropist, had a well-documented fondness for alcohol, particularly beer. He was known to consume significant quantities, with some accounts noting he would drink a case of beer in a day. This level of consumption led some to describe him as a functioning alcoholic. His drinking habits reportedly caused strain in his marriage to Joanne Woodward. In the late 1970s, an incident occurred where Woodward did not allow Newman back into their house because of his drinking. He promised to give up hard liquor as a compromise, but continued to drink beer, sometimes consuming a case during dinner.