ChatGPT cannot track time. The real gap between AI hype and the real world.
Your Life Is a Library
Every conversation, lesson, and memory sits on the shelves. Writing one story keeps part of that library from burning.
Everyone is worried about AI taking jobs. Right now, it cannot even time a mile.
There is a viral clip making the rounds. A creator who goes by Husk has fun with AI, and on his TikTok feed, he asks ChatGPT to track a run.
Nothing crazy. He didn’t need it analyzed or estimated. Just track the time.
But instead of doing that, it makes up a finish time. No timing or tracking. Just a confident answer that never happened.
We have all heard of AI hallucinations, but this is next level. That video says more about where AI stands today than most headlines.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saw the clip and addressed it on the Mostly Human podcast.
His response was pretty glib: “That’s a known issue.” He added it might take another year before something like basic timing works reliably.
A year? A year for something stopwatches solved centuries ago.
That is the gap. AI performs well with writing, coding, summarizing, and answering questions. It sounds sharp, responds fast, and feels capable.
But move into the real world and things fall apart.
Most of us have never thought about it, but timing a run requires awareness of time passing. It requires connection to reality, not prediction or telling us what we want to hear.
ChatGPT does not track time in that way. So, it fills the gap the only way it knows how.
It makes shit up.
There is a lot of noise right now about AI replacing entire industries. Companies are restructuring. Teams are shrinking. Roles are changing.
On a side note, many people believe AI is being used as the fallback excuse to cover up massive over-hiring during the pandemic. Plus, Wall Street thinks it “sounds cool” if you are firing humans and replacing them with machines.
The shift is real. But moments like the viral video are a useful check.
We are still early. AI is strong at pattern recognition and language generation. It is weak at real-time or physical tasks. Until that gap closes, humans are critical cogs in the proverbial machine.
Instead of asking if AI will replace us, we should ask: what does AI suck at (see ChatGPT cannot track time)?
Where does it lose context, guess instead of know, or sound right but lack proof?
That is the secret gravy. Because right now, AI can help you think. It can help you move faster. But it cannot always help you execute in the real world.
There is nothing wrong with taking AI seriously. We should. There is something wrong with overestimating where it stands right now.
If a system cannot reliably count ten minutes, it is not ready to replace entire teams without EXTREME oversight.
So, before we panic, take a breath. Let the technology mature. And maybe slow down on the idea that everyone needs to be replaced right now.
Because right now, your phone can track your run.
AI still needs a little more time.…literally.
