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(Ir)rationality and cognitive biases in large language models.
Olivia Macmillan-Scott1, Mirco Musolesi1,2
1Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, UK.
Large language models (LLMs) exhibit irrationality in reasoning tasks, similar to humans. However, their errors and inconsistencies differ from human biases, indicating unique model limitations.
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Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Artificial Intelligence
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Large language models (LLMs) are known to inherit human biases from training data.
- The extent to which LLMs exhibit rational reasoning, and how it compares to human rationality, is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether large language models (LLMs) display rational reasoning.
- To compare the reasoning patterns of LLMs with human cognitive biases using established psychological tasks.
Main Methods:
- Evaluated seven different large language models (LLMs).
- Utilized tasks commonly found in cognitive psychology literature to assess reasoning.
- Analyzed the nature of errors and inconsistencies in LLM responses.
Main Results:
- LLMs demonstrate irrationality in reasoning tasks, mirroring human performance in some aspects.
- LLM irrationality manifests differently from human cognitive biases, with errors often unique to the models.
- LLMs exhibit significant response inconsistency, adding another layer of irrationality.
Conclusions:
- LLMs do not replicate human-like irrationality in reasoning tasks.
- LLM reasoning is characterized by unique error patterns and notable response inconsistency.
- The study proposes a methodological framework for assessing and comparing LLM capabilities, specifically rational reasoning.