While GPT-4 performs well in structured reasoning tasks, a new study shows that its ability to adapt to variations is weak—suggesting AI still lacks true abstract understanding and flexibility in decision-making.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly large language models like GPT-4, has shown impressive performance on reasoning tasks. But does AI truly understand abstract concepts, or is it just mimicking patterns? A new study from the University of Amsterdam and the Santa Fe Institute reveals that while GPT models perform well on some analogy tasks, they fall short when the problems are altered, highlighting key weaknesses in AI’s reasoning capabilities.
Analogical reasoning is the ability to draw a comparison between two different things based on their similarities in certain aspects. It is one of the most common methods by which human beings try to understand the world and make decisions. An example of analogical reasoning: cup is to coffee as soup is to ??? (the answer being: bowl)
Large language models like GPT-4 perform well on various tests, including those requiring analogical reasoning. But can AI models truly engage in general, robust reasoning, or do they over-rely on patterns from their training data? This study by language and AI experts Martha Lewis (Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam) and Melanie Mitchell (Santa Fe Institute) examined whether GPT models are as flexible and robust as humans in making analogies. ‘This is crucial, as AI is increasingly used for decision-making and problem-solving in the real world,’ explains Lewis.
Comparing AI models to human performance
Lewis and Mitchell compared the performance of humans and GPT models on three different types of analogy problems:
- Letter sequences – Identify patterns in letter sequences and complete them correctly.
- Digit matrices – Analyzing number patterns and determining the missing numbers.
- Story analogies – Understanding which of two stories best corresponds to a given example story.
A system that truly understands analogies should maintain high performance even on variations
In addition to testing whether GPT models could solve the original problems, the study examined how well they performed when the problems were subtly modified. ‘A system that truly understands analogies should maintain high performance even on these variations’, state the authors in their article.
GPT models struggle with robustness
Humans maintained high performance on most modified versions of the problems, but GPT models, while performing well on standard analogy problems, struggled with variations. ‘This suggests that AI models often reason less flexibly than humans, and their reasoning is less about true abstract understanding and more about pattern matching,’ explains Lewis.
In digit matrices, GPT models showed a significant performance drop when the missing number’s position changed. Humans had no difficulty with this. In story analogies, GPT-4 tended to select the first given answer as correct more often, whereas humans were not influenced by answer order. Additionally, GPT-4 struggled more than humans when key elements of a story were reworded, suggesting a reliance on surface-level similarities rather than deeper causal reasoning.
When tested on modified versions, GPT models showed a decline in performance on simpler analogy tasks, while humans remained consistent. However, both humans and AI struggled with more complex analogical reasoning tasks.
Weaker than human cognition
This research challenges the widespread assumption that AI models like GPT-4 can reason in the same way humans do. ‘While AI models demonstrate impressive capabilities, this does not mean they truly understand what they are doing,’ conclude Lewis and Mitchell. ‘Their ability to generalize across variations is still significantly weaker than human cognition. GPT models often rely on superficial patterns rather than deep comprehension.’
This is a critical warning about using AI in important decision-making areas such as education, law, and healthcare. While AI can be a powerful tool, it is not yet a replacement for human thinking and reasoning.
- Lewis, Martha, and Melanie Mitchell. “Evaluating the Robustness of Analogical Reasoning in Large Language Models.” Transactions on Machine Learning Research, 2025, openreview.net/forum?id=t5cy5v9wp
News
DNA Microscopy Creates 3D Maps of Life From the Inside Out
What if you could take a picture of every gene inside a living organism—not with light, but with DNA itself? Scientists at the University of Chicago have pioneered a revolutionary imaging technique called volumetric DNA microscopy. It builds [...]
Scientists Just Captured the Stunning Process That Shapes Chromosomes
Scientists at EMBL have captured how human chromosomes fold into their signature rod shape during cell division, using a groundbreaking method called LoopTrace. By observing overlapping DNA loops forming in high resolution, they revealed that large [...]
Bird Flu Virus Is Mutating Fast – Scientists Say Our Vaccines May Not Be Enough
H5N1 influenza is evolving rapidly, weakening the effectiveness of existing antibodies and increasing its potential threat to humans. Scientists at UNC Charlotte and MIT used high-performance computational modeling to analyze thousands of viral protein-antibody interactions, revealing [...]
Revolutionary Cancer Vaccine Targets All Solid Tumors
The method triggers immune responses that inhibit melanoma, triple-negative breast cancer, lung carcinoma, and ovarian cancer. Cancer treatment vaccines have been in development since 2010, when the first was approved for prostate cancer, followed [...]
Scientists Uncover Hidden Protein Driving Autoimmune Attacks
Scientists have uncovered a critical piece of the puzzle in autoimmune diseases: a protein that helps release immune response molecules. By studying an ultra-rare condition, researchers identified ArfGAP2 as a key player in immune [...]
Mediterranean neutrino observatory sets new limits on quantum gravity
Quantum gravity is the missing link between general relativity and quantum mechanics, the yet-to-be-discovered key to a unified theory capable of explaining both the infinitely large and the infinitely small. The solution to this [...]
Challenging Previous Beliefs: Japanese Scientists Discover Hidden Protector of Heart
A Japanese research team found that the oxidized form of glutathione (GSSG) may protect heart tissue by modifying a key protein, potentially offering a novel therapeutic approach for ischemic heart failure. A new study [...]
Millions May Have Long COVID – So Why Can’t They Get Diagnosed?
Millions of people in England may be living with Long Covid without even realizing it. A large-scale analysis found that nearly 10% suspect they might have the condition but remain uncertain, often due to [...]
Researchers Reveal What Happens to Your Brain When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep
What if poor sleep was doing more than just making you tired? Researchers have discovered that disrupted sleep in older adults interferes with the brain’s ability to clean out waste, leading to memory problems [...]
How to prevent chronic inflammation from zombie-like cells that accumulate with age
In humans and other multicellular organisms, cells multiply. This defining feature allows embryos to grow into adulthood, and enables the healing of the many bumps, bruises and scrapes along the way. Certain factors can [...]
Breakthrough for long Covid patients who lost sense of smell
A breakthrough nasal surgery has restored the sense of smell for a dozen long Covid patients. Experts at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust successfully employed a technique typically used for correcting blocked nasal passages, [...]
Scientists Invent Plastic That Can Dissolve In Seawater In Just A Few Hours
Plastic waste and pollution in the sea have been among the most serious environmental problems for decades, causing immense damage to marine life and ecosystems. However, a breakthrough discovery may offer a game-changing solution. [...]
Muscles from the 3D printer
Swiss researchers have developed a method for printing artificial muscles out of silicone. In the future, these could be used on both humans and robots. Swiss researchers have succeeded in printing artificial muscles out [...]
Beneficial genetic changes observed in regular blood donors
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have identified genetic changes in blood stem cells from frequent blood donors that support the production of new, non-cancerous cells. Understanding the differences in the mutations that accumulate [...]
Shocking Amounts of Microplastics in the Brain – It Could Be Increasing Our Risk of Dementia
The brain has higher concentrations of plastic particles compared to other organs, with increased levels found in dementia patients. In a comprehensive commentary published in Brain Medicine, researchers highlight alarming new evidence of microplastic accumulation [...]
Baffling Scientists for Centuries: New Study Unravels Mystery of Static Electricity
ISTA physicists demonstrate that contact electrification depends on the contact history of materials. For centuries, static electricity has intrigued and perplexed scientists. Now, researchers from the Waitukaitis group at the Institute of Science and [...]
