The podcast episode discusses the limitations of large language models (LLMs), like OpenAI's ChatGPT, in accurately performing seemingly simple tasks such as counting specific letters within a word. It explains that this difficulty arises because LLMs process text through "tokenization," breaking words into smaller units that don't always align with individual letters, rather than understanding words as a sequence of characters. The text demonstrates how different prompt engineering can slightly alter results but highlights a fundamental issue with LLMs' predictive nature versus precise logical reasoning. It suggests alternative solutions, such as integrating external programming functions or combining LLMs with symbolic reasoning engines, to overcome these inherent "collective stupidity" limitations, emphasizing that current AI models excel at text generation but lack true human-like comprehension for exact, detail-oriented tasks.