I repeated my experiment with the Miss Manners benchmark using Clause Sonnet (Clause 3.5 Pro). The results were the best I’ve seen so far.

For details on the Miss Manners benchmark, and the results with ChatGPT, refer to my previous post, or the view a summary of other results.

Zero-shot Clause Sonnet produced a valid solution.

Prompting: 

Guest 7 (f) is recently divorced from guest 4 (m). Could you take that into account?

Sonnet re-arranged the table, placing M4 and F7 away from each other:

Prompt:

What are the problems with this arrangement?

Correct response:

Let's analyze the arrangement to identify any potential problems:

Gender alternation: This requirement is fully met. The arrangement alternates between male and female guests throughout the table.
Shared hobbies: This requirement is also fully met. Each pair of adjacent guests shares at least one hobby.
Separation of recently divorced couple: This has been addressed by placing guests 7 and 4 far apart.

However, there are a few potential issues:

Uneven distribution of hobbies: Some adjacent pairs share multiple hobbies, while others share only one. This could lead to imbalanced conversations.
Potential for awkward conversations: Although guests 7 and 4 are far apart, they might still be able to see or hear each other across the table, which could be uncomfortable.
Limited interaction opportunities: With fixed seating, guests only have the opportunity to interact closely with their immediate neighbors. This might limit the overall social dynamics of the party.
No consideration for personal preferences: We haven't taken into account whether any guests particularly like or dislike sitting next to each other (apart from the divorced couple).
Rigidity: The arrangement doesn't allow for any flexibility or movement during the dinner, which some guests might find constraining.
Potential for dominant conversations: If two adjacent guests share multiple hobbies, they might engage in extended conversations that exclude others.
No consideration for dietary requirements or food preferences: If there are any special meal considerations, we haven't accounted for them in the seating arrangement.
Table size and shape: We haven't considered whether the circular table is large enough to comfortably accommodate 16 people while allowing for easy conversation across the table.

To improve the arrangement, you might consider:

Gathering more information about guest preferences and relationships
Planning for some movement or seat-switching during the event
Considering table size and shape in relation to the number of guests
Taking into account any dietary requirements that might affect seating

Would you like suggestions on how to address any of these potential issues?

Conclusions

This was a very strong set of results, better than GPT4 and Mistral (Large):

  1. 👍Zero-shot Sonnet found a good solution to the basic 16 person seating problem.
  2. 👍The statement of the recent divorce between two guests was correctly inferred to mean they should not be seated next to each other
  3. 👍It correctly re-arranged the table to avoid placing recently divorced people close to one another
  4. 👍When asked to analyse its solution it correctly determined that it was valid and listed some useful caveats