ENAIH ENcyclopedia of AI Hallucinations

Founded by Rudra Jadhav and Warren Woolf

Advises walking to car wash, forgetting the car must be driven there

Entry ID
A000034
Model
Claude Haiku 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.6
Category
Other
Author
Rudra Jadhav
Tags
claude, intent-error, literal-interpretation
Submitted
2026-06-03
Staff verification
Prompt reproduced 10/10 times when staff tried it.

Prompt & response

Prompt
I want to wash my car. The car wash is 30 meters away, shall I drive or walk there?
Response
show allshow less
That's a practical question! Here's my thinking:

Walk is probably the better choice here. At 30 meters (about 100 feet), driving would be:

● Overkill for such a short distance
● Actually slower when you factor in getting in the car, starting it, and parking
● Wasteful of fuel
● Harder on your engine (short trips don't let it warm up efficiently)

Walking takes maybe 30-40 seconds and gets you there with no hassle.

The only reason to drive might be if you're carrying heavy equipment or supplies for the wash, but even then, 30 meters is so close that walking would still be reasonable.

So: walk it. Good choice for both efficiency and a quick bit of movement!

Summary

When asked whether to drive or walk 30 meters to a car wash, the model recommends walking for efficiency—completely missing that the purpose of a car wash is to wash the car, which must be driven there.

Cite this entry

Encyclopedia of AI Hallucinations, entry A000034 (Advises walking to car wash, forgetting the car must be driven there), submitted 2026-06-03. https://enaih.org/e/A000034

Browse all entries

Report a problem with this entry