SneerClub

Hmm, maybe too premature - chatgpt has history on by default now, so maybe that's where it got the idea it was a classic puzzle?

With history off, it still sounds like it has the problem in the training dataset, but it is much more bizarre:

https://markdownpastebin.com/?id=68b58bd1c4154789a493df964b3618f1

Could also be randomness.

Select snippet:

Both ferrymen row their two boats across (time = D/v = 1/3 h).
One ferryman (say A) swims back alone to the west bank (time = D/u = 1 h).
That same ferryman (A) now rows the second boat back across (time = 1/3 h).
Meanwhile, the other ferryman (B) has just been waiting on the east bank—but now both are on the east side, and both boats are there.

I have to say with history off it sounds like an even more ambitious moron. I think their history thing may be sort of freezing bot behavior in time, because the bot sees a lot of past outputs by itself, and in the past it was a lot less into shitting LaTeX all over the place when doing a puzzle.

Can someone explain the origin of this problem for someone ootl?

Gonna take a wild guess that enough people have tried this joke to the point where they've added custom code or lines in the system prompt about it:

prompt and outpoo

If there’s only one ferryman, the puzzle becomes trivial (he just shuttles each boat one by one:

Does he now?

This is obviously a math olympiad gold medal performance, Fields medal worthy even!

Two ferrymen and three boats are on the left bank of a river. Each boat holds exactly one man. How can they get both men and all three boats to the right bank?

Officially, you can't. Unofficially, just have one of the ferrymen tow a boat.

At first glance it seems impossible once N≥2, because as soon as you bring a boat across to the right bank, one of you must pilot a boat back—leaving a boat behind on the wrong side.

In this sentence, the bot appears to sort of "get" it (not entirely, though, the wording is weird). However, from there, it definitely goes downhill...