Technology

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.

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

Nearly half of llm users are dumber than they seem

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

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.

For anyone wondering.

LLM=Large Language Model

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.

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

and still wrong.

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

Not really endorsing LLMs, but some people...

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

If you don't have a good idea of how LLM's work, then they'll seem smart.

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

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

i guess the 90% marketing (re: linus torvalds) is working

"US".... Even LLM won't vote for Trump

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

If I think of what causes the average person to consider another to be “smart,” like quickly answering a question about almost any subject, giving lots of detail, and most importantly saying it with confidence and authority, LLMs are great at that shit!

They might be bad reasons to consider a person or thing “smart,” but I can’t say I’m surprised by the results. People can be tricked by a computer for the same reasons they can be tricked by a human.