Can LLMs Predict Human Behavior? A Measure of their Pretrained Knowledges︎︎︎

with Wayne Gao, Annie Liang

arxiv︎︎︎

Jan 2026

new draft

We measure the predictive capability of an LLM by the size of the training sample required for a conventional ML or economic model to match its predictive performance. We derive the inference theory associated with this measure.