An AI rival to ChatGPT passed a university level law and economics exam, and did better than many humans, professor says

• An AI received a marginal pass in a law and economics exam, economics professor Alex Tabarrok said.
• Tabarrok, a professor at George Mason University, said the AI's answer was "better than many human responses."

An AI which received funding from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried passed a university-level law and economics exam, according to a professor at Virginia's George Mason University.

The AI, named Claude, was designed by AI safety and research firm Anthropic, and was used by Alex Tabarrok to take a law and economics

Claude received a "marginal pass" on a recent law and economics exam at George Mason University in Virginia, Alex Tabarrok, an economics professor at the college wrote on the influential Marginal Revolution University blog, which he runs with fellow economist Tyler Cowen.

Tabarrok said the exam was graded blind and that he considered Claude "a competitor" and "improvement" to OpenAI's GPT3, the tech underlying viral sensation ChatGPT.

Tabarrok did note that there were some weaknesses in the answer including the fact that it was "mostly opinion," and a better answer would have used more economic reasoning.

"Still a credible response and better than many human responses," he added.

There has been an explosion of interest in AI capabilities since the launch of OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT in November. ChatGPT has an eerie human-like ability to do everything from writing convincing cover letters to beating 80% of human candidates to an interview.

Anthropic secured $580 million in Series B funding in May 2022 with investors including Bankman-Fried, FTX's former director of engineering Nishad Singh, and former CEO of Alameda Research Caroline Ellison.

FTX, Alameda Research, and other affiliated companies filed for bankruptcy on November 11, after customers withdrew funds en masse.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in December and had eight criminal charges brought against him by federal prosecutors including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Singh and Ellison have also been implicated in Bankman-Fried's alleged fraudulent activities, and have been cooperating with prosecutors.