“AI Tool told me the tank will take about 6 hours to heat — did it look that up, guess from a pattern, or actually work it out?”
Reasoning vs Recall Challenge
AI Tool: “Copper is a common material for the pipework in solar hot-water systems.”
AI Tool: “Given 300 L of water, a 2 kW heater, and a 35°C rise, heating will take about 6.1 hours.”
AI Tool: “Water has a specific heat capacity of about 4.186 kJ/kg°C.”
Depth ladder
Not every AI Tool answer comes from the same place: sometimes it's recalling something close to a fact it read during training, sometimes it's applying a general pattern to a new situation, and sometimes it's actually working through a calculation step by step. Sort the example claims below into the category you think each belongs to.
Knowledge check
Redo the heating-time calculation with different starting numbers and check the model's answer against it.