Artificial Intelligence has an amazing ability to process millions of pieces of data in seconds.
But don’t ask it to give you the time.
An Edinburgh University team has found that some of the world’s most advanced AI systems have problems telling the time and working out dates on calendars, a study suggests.
“While AI models can perform complex tasks such as writing essays and generating art, they have yet to master some skills that humans carry out with ease,” the research report says.
“Unlike simply recognising shapes, understanding analogue clocks and calendars requires a combination of spatial awareness, context and basic maths – something that remains challenging for AI.”
The team tested if AI systems that process text and images – known as multimodal large language models (MLLMs) – could answer time-related questions by looking at a picture of a clock or a calendar.
They used various clock designs, including some with Roman numerals, with and without second hands, and different coloured dials.
They found that AI systems, at best, got clock-hand positions right less than a quarter of the time.
Mistakes were most common when clocks had Roman numerals or stylised clock hands.
“AI systems also did not perform any better when the second hand was removed, suggesting there are deep-seated issues with hand detection and angle interpretation,” they said.
“The researchers asked AI models to answer a range of calendar-based questions, such as identifying holidays and working out past and future dates.
“(They) found that even the best-performing AI model got date calculations wrong one-fifth of the time.”
The full report is on the University of Edinburgh website.
