this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
544 points (96.7% liked)

Technology

66831 readers
4954 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
544
Nearly half of U.S. adults believe LLMs are smarter than they are. (imaginingthedigitalfuture.org)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
215 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

As far as I can tell from the article, the definition of "smarter" was left to the respondents, and "answers as if it knows many things that I don't know" is certainly a reasonable definition -- even if you understand that, technically speaking, an LLM doesn't know anything.

As an example, I used ChatGPT just now to help me compose this post, and the answer it gave me seemed pretty "smart":

what's a good word to describe the people in a poll who answer the questions? I didn't want to use "subjects" because that could get confused with the topics covered in the poll.

"Respondents" is a good choice. It clearly refers to the people answering the questions without ambiguity.

The poll is interesting for the other stats it provides, but all the snark about these people being dumber than LLMs is just silly.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

No. People think things that aren't smarter than them are all the time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Nearly half of llm user are dumber than they seem

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Only half?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Yeah thereabouts

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

For anyone wondering.

LLM=Large Language Model

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm starting to think an article referring to LLM as AI is s red flag, while them referring to them as LLM is a green flag.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

Always has been

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

No, 21% struggle with basic literacy skills. They're illiterate, but not fully illiterate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

People can improve literacy in adulthood if they try.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

21%

What the fuck

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

I will do you one better, HOW THE FUCK?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Our education system in the USA is so bad. 😔

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 hours ago

Good thing we nuked the Dept of Ed

[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago

Ask an LLM what is affected by tariffs

[–] [email protected] 14 points 13 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

to be fair they're American and they're LLM users, so for a selected group like that odds are they really are as stupid as LLMs.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

They are. Unless you can translate what I'm saying to any language I tell you to on the fly, I'm going to assume that anyone that tells me they are smarter than LLMs are lower on the spectrum than usual. Wikipedia and a lot of libraries are also more knowledgeable than me, who knew. If I am grateful for one thing, it is that I am not one of those people whose ego has to be jizzing everywhere, including their perception of things.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

The statement is "smarter", not "possesses more information". None of the things you listed (LLMs, libraries, Wikipedia, etc.) have any capacity to reason.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

The only thing you've argued is that you are choosing one particular definition of smart, ignoring the one I was using, and going all Grammar Nazi into how that's the only possible definition. As I've said, if I am grateful for one thing, it is that I am not one of those people whose ego ^is^ ^shallow^ ^enough^ ^to^ has ^/have^ to be jizzing everywhere, including their perception of things.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

oh my god 49% of LLM users are pathologically stupid.

and still wrong.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Still better than reddit users...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

where do you think these idiots spend their time?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

I try not to think about them, honestly. (งツ)ว

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

only boomers and tech-unsavy people think that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

unfortunately, no. when the concept of machine intelligence was first being explored, marvin minsky(I think)'s secretary used ELIZA, the basic fits-on-a-page chatbot. they said it was absolutely a person, that they were friends with it. he walked them through it, explained the code (which, again, fits on one page in a modern language. a couple punch cards back then, you can look at what looked at first glance like a faithful python port here). the secretary just would not believe him, INSISTED that it was a person, that it cared about them.

this was someone working around the cutting edge of the field, and being personally educated by one of those big 'great man' type scientists-and not one of the egotistical shithead ones who'd have been a garbage teacher.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 14 hours ago (1 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

literally dogs are smarter and have more reasoning ability.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Than half of LLM users? Probably

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

also that, yes.

load more comments
view more: next ›