{"slug": "the-math-solving-horse-who-fooled-scientists-still-haunts-ai-research", "title": "The math-solving horse who fooled scientists still haunts AI research", "summary": "The story of Clever Hans, a horse in early 1900s Germany who appeared to solve math problems but was actually responding to subtle cues from his trainer, continues to haunt AI research as a cautionary tale about unintended cues in machine learning. The phenomenon, known as the Clever Hans effect, warns researchers that AI models may exploit spurious correlations rather than truly understanding tasks.", "body_md": "In early 1900s Germany, a math teacher named Wilhelm von Osten toured the country with [Clever Hans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans), a horse who could apparently add, subtract, multiply, divide, tell time, and answer questions like \"If the eighth day of the month comes on a Tuesday, what is the date of the following Friday?\" — [Read the rest ](https://boingboing.net/2026/07/27/clever-hans-horse.html)\n\nThe post [The math-solving horse who fooled scientists still haunts AI research](https://boingboing.net/2026/07/27/clever-hans-horse.html) appeared first on [Boing Boing](https://boingboing.net).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-math-solving-horse-who-fooled-scientists-still-haunts-ai-research", "canonical_source": "https://boingboing.net/2026/07/27/clever-hans-horse.html", "published_at": "2026-07-27 13:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-27 13:41:49.008673+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-research", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Clever Hans", "Wilhelm von Osten"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-math-solving-horse-who-fooled-scientists-still-haunts-ai-research", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-math-solving-horse-who-fooled-scientists-still-haunts-ai-research.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-math-solving-horse-who-fooled-scientists-still-haunts-ai-research.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-math-solving-horse-who-fooled-scientists-still-haunts-ai-research.jsonld"}}