About whether LLMs should do arithmetic themselves or use Python tools.
Has this happened?
Yes 53 (41%)Not sure 45 (35%)No 30 (23%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether LLMs should do arithmetic themselves or use Python tools.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
It “work” but the LLM having to use the calculator mean the LLM doesn’t understand arithmetic enough and doesn’t know how to use an follow a set of step (algorithm ) natively to find the answer for bug numbers.
I believe this could be fixed and is worth fixing.
Because it’s the only way LLM will be able to help math and physic researcher write proof and make real scientific progress