AI still can't handle simple date math—here's why that matters
Turns out, even the smartest AIs like Google's AI Overview and ChatGPT get tripped up by basic questions about years.
When asked if 2027 is next year, Google's AI confidently replied it was 2026, and ChatGPT had to backtrack after a wrong answer.
These slip-ups aren't just funny—they show that today's AIs have a real blind spot when it comes to handling dates.
Why do they keep messing up dates?
Unlike search engines, most AIs don't check the real-time calendar—they guess based on old data patterns.
The authors found this leads to all sorts of mistakes: Google's AI Overview said it was 2025 (it's actually 2026), and in one test, AIs got nearly a third of awareness days for 2026 wrong—including putting Easter on April 20 instead of April 5.
Basically, if you're asking an AI what day or year it is, double-check before you trust the answer!