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Google Assistant and Cortana are breaking the Internet for getting wrong the question ‘How many legs does a horse have?’

by Felix Omondi
google assistant

It appears Google Search is not all that smart! Well, neither is Bing that powers Cortana, and here is why.

Someone must have stumbled into asking Google Assistant “How many legs does a horse have?” and the shocking reply has made that question trend. It is trending because Google Assistant keeps giving the exact same odd answer to everyone.

The Assistant says a horse has six legs; two legs at the back, and four legs at the front. Yes, the digital assistant somehow thinks mutant horses are a thing.

The glitch also seems to be affecting Microsoft Bing search engine (it powers Cortana), since users who asked the same question to Cortana were getting the exact same wrong answer.

If it is some relief, Apple’s Siri did not make the same mistake as Cortana and Google Assistant. Interestingly, the same mistake made by Google Assistant and Cortana on this question was made by Google and Bing search on the web.

So why did Cortana and Google Assistant get it wrong?

Well, it appears that both search engines’ algorithms are ranking a riddle about horses found on this Wikipedia page and using it as reference for the answers. That riddle reads in part:

All horses have even number of legs

All horses have two legs at the back

They also have fore legs at the front

That makes it a total of six legs

But six is an odd number of legs for a horse to have

Since infinity is the only number that is odd and even, all horses have infinite legs!

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