Written By Will Grant
 

AI is making people feel smarter than they are, ancient Australia had crocodiles that dropped out of trees and Gen Z is busy rewriting the rules on everything from ironing to history. This week, we’re diving into a world where technology inflates our egos, prehistoric predators take the high ground, and the youngest generation both celebrates and questions the past. 

AI Inflates Our Egos

Ever finished a task with a little help from ChatGPT and thought, “I’m a genius”? A recent study reveals that people using AI to solve logic tasks tend to wildly overestimate their own brilliance, especially those who consider themselves tech-savvy. The more you know about technology, the more likely you are to fall for the Dunning-Kruger effect with a digital twist. According to Robin Welsh at Alto University, higher AI literacy actually breeds more overconfidence, with users eagerly accepting AI suggestions and rarely questioning the results. Maybe it is time to admit that sometimes, the only thing AI is really boosting is our egos.

Drop Crocs Take the High Ground

Let’s rewind to ancient Australia, where the wildlife was somehow even more terrifying than it is now. Picture this: you’re wandering through the bush, and a five-metre prehistoric crocodile drops on you from a tree. Fossils from Western Queensland suggest these drop crocs were real, and they probably hunted by ambushing their prey from above. Suddenly, the idea of snakes in the grass feels a lot less threatening. It’s a story that adds a whole new layer of danger to Australia’s already impressive collection of animal nightmares. Next time someone tells you to watch out for crocs, maybe look up.

Inside the Gen Z Mindset

Now for a trip into the minds of Generation Z, where things get even more interesting. A recent survey found that Gen Z sometimes wonders if they belong in the wrong era, longing for simpler, less digital days. They question the need for old-school survival skills like starting a fire, and 30 percent say ironing is pointless, throwing shade at the idea that a crisp shirt equals good character. On the bright side, they are leading the charge on mental health awareness, which is something worth celebrating. But when it comes to history, some Gen Zers claim they invented baggy jeans and rank themselves as the most annoying generation to work with, beating out even the baby boomers.

From AI-fuelled bravado to prehistoric predators and Gen Z’s upside-down logic, the world keeps finding new ways to surprise us. If you think life is getting stranger, you’re absolutely right. And that’s exactly how we like it.

 

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction 

00:48 AI and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

02:11 AI Literacy and Overconfidence

02:51 AI's Impact on Self-Assessment

06:59 Australian Wildlife and Myths

07:35 Legend of the Drop Croc

08:57 Generational Differences

10:10 Gen Z's Perspective

11:03 Skills and Inventions

12:52 Annoying Generations at Work

13:40 Conclusion and Call to Action

 


  • [00:00:04] WILL: It is time for a little bit of science. I'm Will Grant, an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.

    [00:00:13] ROD: And I'm Rod Lambert. I'm a 30 year science communication veteran with a mind of a teenage boy.

    [00:00:18] WILL: And today. Well, we've been at the Beach Large Hadron Collider.

    [00:00:23] ROD: Yeah. Drinking in swimming cocktails. In fact, I'm still there. I dunno where you are of, uh, isotopes and science and stuff like that. So rather than giving you our regular pile of science, we've saved you something delicious. We've been scrolling away little snippets throughout the millennium and you're gonna get a bunch of those right now. It's gonna be fab.

    [00:00:43] WILL: Enjoy. Another

    [00:00:48] ROD: AI's making weirder.

    [00:00:50] WILL: Oh, oh, AI makes a lot of things weirder. Did you want me to guess? Ah, no. No. 'Cause my brain just goes to sex or cooking like it's,

    [00:00:58] ROD: Mine too, but nothing to do with AI. Everyone gifted enough to have listened to this show or the wholesome show knows what the Dunning Kruger effect is. Say, well, I was gonna tell you, but I mean, mostly my, my dad joke is, or at least they're confident enough to think they do and would talk about it. Oh, so we talked about it on the wholesome show. We talked about it in many places. It's a phenomenon that goes back to 2000, the year 2000 when the people who coined it rewarded an IG Noble. A nutshell, as a rule, people who are bad at doing something tend to wildly overestimate how good they are at it. 'Cause they really don't know enough about what good is and they don't understand how bad they really are 'cause they don't know what to compare it to. And people who are pretty damn flash at what they do often don't think they're as good as they are.

    [00:01:46] WILL: Because they have focused maybe on the experts that are above them and they're like, actually, I, I want to get to there. Yeah. And so all I'm paying attention to is that last 1% who's better. So they're the reverse of Dunning Kruger, Am I the exception I don't have Dunning Kruger. Yes. you are. I, I estimate.

    [00:02:07] ROD: Has proved that perfectly. Exactly. Bang on. So AI comes into this 'cause it should. So as a recent study in one of your favorite journals, Computers in Human Behavior. Have you really? Well done. You. So in this journal, the article is called AI Makes You Smarter, but None the Wiser. Bottom line is the study asked everyone to complete a series of tasks using ChatGPT and everyone was bad at estimating their performance. The people who did the task, they were then asked whether they used ChatGPT, the AI or not the thing, They were basically, they were asked how well have you done whether they did use it or not. And everyone was terrible at estimating their. Or they didn't. And yeah, everyone was like, I'm really good at it. And most people were not. Okay. But the senior author of this study, uh, dude at Alto University guy called Robin Welsh, I think it's a guy, I could be wrong. 

    Could be a lady. Robin's a tricky name. Or a bird. It could be, it could have been a bird. Our first bird researcher, Probably not. So Welsh says we would expect people who are AI literate to not only be a bit better at interacting with AI systems, but also at judging their performance with those systems. Obviously Robin Welsh and colleagues said, let's test it. Let's have a little lookie. So they got 500 people. They were given 20 logic or reasoning, you know, logic slash reasoning problems from the famous law school admission test. They're also given a questionnaire dis, uh, to gauge their AI literacy. How good are they with Theis? Ah, So then half of them used ChatGPT to answer the questions, and half just had to use their own meat brains, That was standardized. So they did that. They were then asked to evaluate their own performance.

     And this is important with the promise of extra compensation, if they did so accurately. So the incentive was we'll give you more. I don't know. AI users did much better than the others. Like just on straight up performance. The AI users did better, but they also vastly overestimated how well they did. Crazy. The participants who were more AI literate were the worst. Rather than those who were less so at talking about how good they were. So the people who are really good at AI also thought they were exceptional and they missed, they missed it entirely. So, Welsh again, the, the, um, researcher said what's really surprising is the higher the AI literacy is, the more it brings over confidence. Kind of spinning Dunning Kruger around a bit here. So they put it, those with more technical knowledge of AI were more, more confident, but less precise in judging their own performance. So yeah, it's reversing DK, that's Dunning Kruger. They also found, usually there's just one single interaction to get results. 

    So users would just type something quickly into AI and then go, cool. I like, I accept it. They didn't do extra queries, nothing. They just went, cool, done, job done, no problem. Which is a common, uh, trend that's been associated with AI in general. Of course, it could be linked to AI sycophancy, the classic, you know, AI going, God, that's an interesting question. My God, you are, you are your sex on a stick. Well, this is really what I had at the end of my little notes here. What do we do? This info and honestly in the words of Foxy Shazam, just keep on keeping on. I don't think we'll do anything with it. I don't think we'll do anything with it. We'll just kind of go, oh look, that's weird. And poo, For those of you who dunno what we're talking about, the band that did the theme song for Peacemaker, season two, if you're not listening to them now, other than us, you're insane. Just insane. Yeah. In fact, do both. One in one, one in one ear, one in the other. Or, or, or, cognizant. Yeah. Even better. We are not as cognizant of our own abilities. In fact, we've become worse thanks to our abilities with AI. Fantastic.

    [00:06:58] WILL: Why I got a nice little, uh, evolution story for you or animal story. Just a nice one and all Australians should know it. And of course the researchers behind it are very, so we should all know that. And the national anthem and what Donald Bradman's second highest score in a test was. Yeah, that should be on the citizenship test., but, um, here in Australia if a visitor comes from international, Number one thing we should be doing is, scaring them a little bit about our native wildlife. You drop bear being the classic That's not mythical. Again, not mythical. Oh. You. Bun Yeah, there you go.

     There's, there's a mythical one. But, people love the story Yeah, they do. But anyway, 55 million years ago a five meter long crocodile. No. There's shorter and there's longer. But this is, what's it called? It's like a crocodilians. I didn't write down that one. It's a, it's a crocodile type, But five meters is a fair bit of crock. It's a fair bit of crock. It's a me shine, uh, Lived in inland waters where Australia was, at the time. So, now the, eggshells and things like that and skeletons have been found in Western Queensland. Yeah.

     And the nice thing here, co-author Professor Michael Archer, said, you know what's really weird? Is we suspect that they hunted by climbing up Dropping on unsuspected prey. So I'm just like, Yee drop Crocs. Come on. If we're gonna bring back anything like the idea Definitely not cro, definitely not them. Definitely not there. Taking a nice walk through the bush and a five minute crocodile lands on you deliberately. Yeah. Look, I'm no fossil guy. Yeah. Oh, by the, from scar of eggshells and three look In all honesty, They're hugging it. Couldn't find the details of that. Really? I'm shocked. Yeah. Yeah. But, love the idea, but, but let's, let's run with it. And I'm not saying it's not that like, I think it was in some other studies as well, but uh, Sure.

    [00:08:51] ROD: We've looked at other fossils that prove these things. Climb trees and drop on you. You love different generations, don't you? The baby boomers. I love all generations Gen X, which is your favorite? The sleepers. The sleepers. The sleepers. The sleep. Because that was my parents' Oh, they're the tiny ones. After the greatest generation. They're the kids in the war. Before Yeah. Or they called the quiet maybe they called the quiet. It's shut up. Well, they also had to sit in the blitz and be quiet, otherwise they'll get Shot, they get bomb bombed and stuff. With those echo Echo, I, I feel like the Greatest Generation, how did they get that name? Like it's a, bit like, I'm gonna go self naked. call me I mean, they're, they're like, They're like, we survived World War I and the Depression and World War II. We did it all. There's no look, it's unambiguous. And I have no bias in this whatsoever. The coolest sounding name is Generation X until, until Elon ruined X. Oh, Gen Z's not Not bad. Gen Z's. All right. But X is like, mysterious. It's got no, Well, a, an X-Men, comic, Uh, a hundred percent. And the fact that I am one is irrelevant. Yeah. 

    So basically Hey, I'm in Gen X too, Man. That's what I mean. So the fact that we are one, Well, I, claim Gen X if I want and then I claim millennial. I don't think anyone deliberately claims millennial, but I can so I'm on the cusp. On the cusp. Oh, so you don't know if you're Scorpio or Sagittarius I dunno. I dunno. Who would know? Like who would know? An astronomer. No, these things can't be precise An astronomer can tell you Anyway. Our friends are edgy, birdie, not necessarily love, not necessarily the world's most high profile scientific outlet. That Duolingo? They're the edgy birdies, aren't Like I, it does sound a little bit like Duolingo, but uh, Sponsors, if you want They, they've, uh, they've gone and done a, study surveying 2000 Gen Zs their views of other generations, the state of the world, and whether they're growing up at the right time in history. And, um, there were just couple of little blips from here that I thought, it's gonna be so sad. Gonna be sad. 

    Every other generation says ours is the best and Gen Z go just kill us now. Ah, look, there's a that. Like, there, there, there is. I I, I, I don't have that in there. But, uh, there, there is a version that they believe they, they were born at the wrong time. They would vastly prefer to be born at other times. Like they like X Yeah. They're like, the world is gonna shit, you know, of. change and, fascism. But they're also like, man, I wish we weren't also addicted to screens and stuff like that. So but I just wanted to go through, uh, three of the stats. Which I thought, let's check if Gen Z is right on this. 

    This question was, which of these skills are unnecessary today? So starting a fire. unnecessary, 35% of Gen Zs are like, no, we don't need to start a fire. Which I'm like, you know, come on man. Oh, that's, that's cocky. Yeah, that's, it's good fun. But I'm like, ironing clothes, come on. 30% of Gen Zs are like, no, we don't need to do that anymore. And I'm like, come on man. Hey, where's your, uh, like your moral fortitude. A crisp shirt means you are a good person on the inside. but Gen not a rapist. Gen Z is moving on from ironing clothes. handwriting not necessary. Oh, that's a big call. Like, I'd actually feel a little bit impaired if I couldn't write. Yeah, I think it might be, you know, beautiful handwriting versus, I mean, I mean, imagine not being able to write at No, I don't, I mean, both you and I both write like shit, like we look like drunk and infants, but it's least it's writing and it's legible if you try. Alright. The next thing is what has your generation invented? That, you know, others should be pretty proud of. Um, and, you know, there's, there's some cool things, and I think this is legit, normalizing conversations about mental health. I think Gen Z has definitely taken a lead there and, you know, they've taken it and run with it. They have, they have, uh, some might say a long way, a long way, Um, improving diversity and inclusion. but here's one of their favorite things. 

    They invented baggy jeans, Did they? Now? Yes. So 21%. No, 23% of Gen Zs are like, you know what we should be proud of? We invented baggy jeans. Any generation that claims in the last, let's say, a hundred years to have invented a particular trend like that. is. They should be staring at their screens more. Actually, a little bit of history. I, I just, I was like, what, what is the thing your generation is proud of? Like, it's not, you we, we beat Hitler. no. no. We invented baggy jet. We invented baggy jeans. And also you didn't, so you're proud of a wrong thing. Okay, this was the reason that I liked this survey. Because one part of the survey was who is the most annoying? This is asking Gen Zs. Who is the most annoying group of people to work with at work? 

    No, we come, so they say the least annoying millennials, 12%, Next least annoying Gen X. So we're doing all right. Hey, Hey, you know, they're 14%. Then comes the boomers. Oh. uh, 20%. then the generation that Gen Z most hates working with. Gen Z. There we go. There we go. So it's a dumb little survey, but I like the idea that, gen Z, even Gen Z gets annoyed at with Gen Z. Who's the worst? Well, we Oh, so annoying. It's us.

    [00:13:40] WILL: Well, that was your little bit of science for the week.

    [00:13:43] ROD: Holiday edition. You're special by the pool wearing a bikini edition.

    [00:13:46] WILL: But because you're on holiday, you know that you still have the power to give us the rating that you need to give us. Yeah,

    [00:13:53] ROD: Seven stars on every app. Even things that don't do podcasts. Yeah.

    [00:13:56] WILL: Go out there and write it on like a recipe app

    [00:13:59] ROD: An Uber and Yelp. Is it Yelp still a thing?

    [00:14:01] WILL: I think so. I'm

    [00:14:02] ROD: I don't know. I'm at a restaurant where Don't ye

    [00:14:03] WILL: Listener, if you've got some topics that you want us to explore,

    [00:14:07] ROD: Tell Will.

    [00:14:08] WILL: How would you tell Will his

    [00:14:10] ROD: Number is? 0 4 0 5 oh. Uh, cheers. At a little bit of science Do com

    [00:14:16] WILL: au.

    [00:14:17] ROD: au

    [00:14:17] WILL: Do that. We want your stories.

    [00:14:19] ROD: We wanna hear from you.

    [00:14:20] WILL: Lovely listener. Enjoy the pina colada.

    [00:14:24] ROD: Oh and the

    [00:14:25] WILL: Col. Pin colada.

    [00:14:27] ROD: Pini Kaia Pina Pia

    [00:14:28] WILL: Pina Kaia of

    [00:14:29] ROD: Of the Clade Penai. Cate.

Will Grant
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