We know AI has more knowledge than humans, but are they “smarter”? Well, half of the Americans think LLMs are already beating us on that benchmark.
“LLMs are Smarter Than Humans,” says Americans
Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center recently did a survey revealing some interesting insights on how people are using and thinking about LLMs (Large Language Models). LLMs are a technical term for these models. The survey was conducted with 500 people.
The first finding was that 52% of American Adults are already using LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot. These are big numbers as most innovations don’t get adopted this fast among the population. However, the key part was how we are looking towards this new technology.
49% of LLM users think that these models are smarter than them. 26% of the users even said they are a lot smarter.
Only 19% of users believed that LLMs are less smart than us, while 18% said we are equally smart. So, still the majority is on the “smarter” side.
This is somewhat of good news as this perception will encourage more adoption of LLMs. People and businesses will be more willing to integrate it into their work. This also means some of the users will use this new skill to become more productive. 54% of the users have said that LLMs improved their productivity.
But there are some downsides too! There will be situations where such beliefs will lead to an over-reliance on AI tools. We know “Artificial Intelligence” is not perfect, it can provide wrong information, even amplify it, leading to some serious problems in society. Even in this survey too, 33% of the users said they are too dependent on LLMs for giving them answers rather than their critical thinking.
There is also this argument that if we start putting AI above us, it will demotivate a lot of people and make them believe they are less worthy. They might start thinking that AI will replace their jobs and they will never be better than it.
But this will give a big boost to the AI agents market. Agents are AI tools that can act on the user’s behalf. If people start accepting the fact that Artificial Intelligence is smarter than them, they will be more willing to buy such an Agent to do their work.
All this will be a never-ending discussion, so it’s now better to move on to some other interesting insights from this survey!
ChatGPT is humans’ Favorite AI
ChatGPT is their favorite among the LLM users. 72% of them have used it. Google’s Gemini stands at 50%, with Microsoft’s Copilot in the number 3 position with 20%. Elon Musk’s Grok is also at 12%.
We know that ChatGPT has changed the world when it was launched in late 2022. But it was just the beginning as new and better models are coming up every month and new tools are released almost every day.
Interestingly, most of the people are using it for their learning. While the discussion is more about AI being more helpful in work life, that is not the case. Some of them treat it like their new Search Engine, replacing Google. People are planning their trips and brainstorming new ideas. That’s why these Big Tech companies are focusing more on the reasoning models.
While this data is for Americans of all ages, we have seen better adoption especially in the younger generation. In a 2024 survey at Harvard University, 50% of the students said they use GenAI at least once a day. Their favorite LLM was also ChatGPT.
Students aren’t the only ones embracing it; software developers love it too! 76% of developers are using or are planning to use AI tools, according to the 2024 Stack Overflow survey. However, most of them don’t think it is any type of threat to them.
Takeaways
As LLMs become more integrated into our lives, it’s worth pondering: Are they our helpful sidekicks or potential overlords? With nearly half of us considering them smarter than ourselves, it’s a question worth exploring.
