Close encounters of the AI kind - Imagining the Digital Future Center
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The increasingly human-like way people are engaging with language models Read the full report | Download this report (PDF) | Survey methdology and topline (PDF) March 12, 2025 Half of...

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.
    • skozzii@lemmy.caEnglish
      251·
      8 hours ago

      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…”

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        42·
        5 hours ago

        That was back when “average” was the wrong word because it still meant the statistical “mean” - the value all data points would have if they were identical (which is what a calculator gives you if you press the AVG button). What Carlin meant was the “median” - the value half of all data points are greater than and half are less than. Over the years the word “average” has devolved to either the mean or median, as if there’s no difference.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          2 hours ago

          When talking about a large, regularly distributed population, there effectively IS no difference

          • andros_rex@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            45 minutes ago

            Not in all cases. When I teach mean, median and mode, I usually bring up household income. Mean income is heavily skewed by outliers (billionaires), median is a more representative measure.

            I guess that’s your “regularly distributed” bit, but a lot of things aren’t regularly distributed.