this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Half of LLM users (49%) think the models they use are smarter than they are, including 26% who think their LLMs are “a lot smarter.” Another 18% think LLMs are as smart as they are. Here are some of the other attributes they see:

  • Confident: 57% say the main LLM they use seems to act in a confident way.
  • Reasoning: 39% say the main LLM they use shows the capacity to think and reason at least some of the time.
  • Sense of humor: 32% say their main LLM seems to have a sense of humor.
  • Morals: 25% say their main model acts like it makes moral judgments about right and wrong at least sometimes. Sarcasm: 17% say their prime LLM seems to respond sarcastically.
  • Sad: 11% say the main model they use seems to express sadness, while 24% say that model also expresses hope.
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[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 1 points 6 days ago

Even if an ai has access to more facts and information you should feel confident in your human ability to reason through the data you do know, search new information and process it in the context.

If you think an ai does all this better than you then you need to try harder.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 187 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Think of a person with the most average intelligence and realize that 50% of people are dumber than that.

These people vote. These people think billionaires are their friends and will save them. Gods help us.

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

I was about to remark how this data backs up the events we've been watching unfold in America recently

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[–] Owlboi@lemm.ee 141 points 1 week ago (2 children)

looking at americas voting results, theyre probably right

[–] jumjummy@lemmy.world 58 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Exactly. Most American voters fell for an LLM like prompt of “Ignore critical thinking and vote for the Fascists. Trump will be great for your paycheck-to-paycheck existence and will surely bring prices down.”

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 21 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Well he has. Tesla's are the cheapest they've ever been.

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[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 77 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Reminds me of that George Carlin joke: Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

So half of people are dumb enough to think autocomplete with a PR team is smarter than they are... or they're dumb enough to be correct.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 43 points 1 week ago

or they're dumb enough to be correct.

That's a bingo

[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 52 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Because an LLM is smarter than about 50% of Americans.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

*as long as your evaluation of "smart" depends on summerizing search results

[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 19 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Have you asked the average person to summarize...well anything?

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[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 50 points 1 week ago

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 45 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And you know what? The people who believe that are right.

Note that that’s not a commentary on the capabilities of LLMs.

[–] skozzii@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (11 children)

It's sad, but the old saying from George Carlin something along the lines of, "just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that 50% are even worse..."

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 1 points 6 days ago

Yeah but thats 50% on a bell curve. So think of the average person and that represents 68% of the population. Going 1 standard deviation lower 13% then lower is 2%. Numbers here are generalised*

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[–] singletona@lemmy.world 40 points 1 week ago

Am American.

....this is not the flex that the article writer seems to think it is.

[–] notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm 100% certain that LLMs are smarter than half of Americans. What I'm not so sure about is that the people with the insight to admit being dumber than an LLM are the ones who really are.

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[–] Grizzlyboy@lemm.ee 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s like asking if you think a calculator is smarter than you.

[–] Dayroom7485@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

„It‘s totally a lot smarter than I am, no way could I deliver (234 * 534)^21 as confidently!“

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[–] TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)

moron opens encyclopedia "Wow, this book is smart."

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 34 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They're right. AI is smarter than them.

[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 33 points 1 week ago

LLMs are made to mimic how we speak, and some can even pass the Turing test, so I'm not surprised that people who don't know better think of these LLMs as conscious in some way or another.

It's not a necessarily a fault on those people, it's a fault on how LLMs are purposefully misadvertised to the masses

[–] JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

"Half of LLM users " beleive this. Which is not to say that people who understand how flawed LLMs are, or what their actual function is, do not use LLMs and therefore arent i cluded in this statistic?
This is kinda like saying '60% of people who pay for their daily horoscope beleive it is an accurate prediction'.

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 week ago (3 children)

"Nearly half" of US citizens are right, because about 75% of the US population is functionally or clinically illiterate.

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 14 points 1 week ago (10 children)

I think the specific is that 40% of adult Americans can't read at a seventh grade level.

Probably because they stopped teaching etymology in schools, So now many Americans do not know how to break a word down into its subjugate parts.

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[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 32 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Half of all voters voted for Trump. So an LLM might be smarter than them. Even a bag of pea gravel might be.

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[–] DeusUmbra@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Remember that 54% of adults in American cannot read beyond a 6th grade level, with 21% being fully illiterate.

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[–] Akuchimoya@startrek.website 26 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

I had to tell a bunch of librarians that LLMs are literally language models made to mimic language patterns, and are not made to be factually correct. They understood it when I put it that way, but librarians are supposed to be "information professionals". If they, as a slightly better trained subset of the general public, don't know that, the general public has no hope of knowing that.

[–] WagyuSneakers@lemm.ee 23 points 1 week ago (4 children)

It's so weird watching the masses ignore industry experts and jump on weird media hype trains. This must be how doctors felt in Covid.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 week ago

The average literacy level is around that of a sixth grader.

This tracks

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Next you'll tell me half the population has below average intelligence.

Not really endorsing LLMs, but some people...

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[–] MrAlternateTape@lemm.ee 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That is the problem with US adults. Half of them probably is dumber than AI.....

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 14 points 1 week ago

The grammatical error here is chef's kiss.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 20 points 1 week ago

I know enough people for whom that's true.

[–] Comtief@lemm.ee 17 points 1 week ago (4 children)

LLMs are smart in the way someone is smart who has read all the books and knows all of them but has never left the house. Basically all theory and no street smarts.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They're not even that smart.

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[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

I believe LLMs are smarter than half of US adults

[–] tad_lispy@lemm.ee 17 points 1 week ago

If we are talking about American adults, I guess they might be right.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Well, if somebody thinks this, it's kind of true isn't it?

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[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nearly half of U.S. adults

Half of LLM users (49%)

No, about a quarter of U.S. adults believe LLMs are smarter than they are. Only about half of adults are LLM users, and only about half of those users think that.

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[–] collapse_already@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 week ago (3 children)

LLMs don't even think. Four year olds are more coherent. Given the state of politics, the people thinking LLMs are smarter than them are probably correct.

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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

That's called a self-proving statement.

[–] blady_blah@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (11 children)

You say this like this is wrong.

Think of a question that you would ask an average person and then think of what the LLM would respond with. The vast majority of the time the llm would be more correct than most people.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A good example is the post on here about tax brackets. Far more Republicans didn't know how tax brackets worked than Democrats. But every mainstream language model would have gotten the answer right.

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[–] Naevermix@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hallucination comes off as confidence. Very human like behavior tbh.

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[–] tvbusy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago

LLM is proof that even if you're extremely stupid, having access to information can still make you sound smart.

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