GPT can amplify the Dunning–Kruger effect

 GPT can amplify the Dunning–Kruger effect by making both the model and its users more confident than is warranted, especially when neither truly recognizes the limits of their knowledge. The combination of fluent, confident-sounding text and users’ tendency to “offload” thinking onto AI creates a situation where people feel more expert than they actually are after using GPT.[neurosciencenews]​

How GPT itself behaves

• Large language models systematically overestimate the probability that their answers are correct, often by 20–60 percentage points across diverse questions, showing a strong overconfidence pattern analogous to Dunning–Kruger.[arxiv]​

• More capable models (with higher accuracy) often show an even steeper “confidence gradient”: they are extremely confident even when wrong, which resembles the effect’s core idea of miscalibrated self-assessment at the system level.[arxiv]​

How GPT changes user psychology

• Experimental work with ChatGPT shows that when people solve tasks with AI help, they improve their objective performance but become much worse at judging how well they actually did, generally overestimating their performance.[aalto]​

• This applies across skill levels, and AI-literate users sometimes miscalibrate the most, suggesting that familiarity with GPT can breed extra confidence without a matching improvement in metacognitive accuracy.[neurosciencenews]​

Cognitive offloading and “illusion of understanding”

• Users frequently ask GPT a single question per problem and accept the first answer without probing, a pattern described as cognitive offloading, where people outsource reasoning instead of critically evaluating outputs.[futurism]​

• Because GPT’s language is fluent and authoritative, it creates an “illusion of understanding” and “illusion of authority,” making users feel like they understand or have checked something thoroughly when they have mostly just read a plausible narrative.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]​

When GPT strengthens Dunning–Kruger dynamics

• In domains like health, law, or finance, people with limited domain knowledge can rapidly produce sophisticated-sounding text with GPT, which may reinforce a belief that they understand complex topics well enough to act or advise others.[mitchthelawyer.substack]​

• In such settings, model hallucinations—confidently stated but false information—can be accepted as fact, especially where digital literacy is low and traditional misinformation is already common, further inflating misplaced confidence.[blog.biocomm]​

How to reduce the amplification

• Encourage users to treat GPT as a drafting and exploration tool rather than an authority: cross-check with trusted primary sources, especially for high-stakes decisions.[pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih]​

• Interface designs that surface uncertainty, ask users to consider alternative answers, or prompt explicit verification (e.g., “What evidence would confirm this?”) can help restore metacognition and partially counter Dunning–Kruger-like overconfidence.[aalto]​