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?

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.

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.

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

Not really endorsing LLMs, but some people...

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

and still wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

This tracks

I believe LLMs are smarter than half of US adults

This is sad. This does not spark joy. We're months from someone using "but look, ChatGPT says..." To try to win an argument. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life explaining to people that LLMs are really fancy bullshit generator toys.

Given the US adults I see on the internet, I would hazard a guess that they're right.

only boomers and tech-unsavy people think that.

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

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

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

"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'.