Claude 3 Opus has stunned AI researchers with its intellect and 'self-awareness' — does this mean it can think for itself?

3D human face extruded from dotted pattern. .

When the large learning model (LLM) Claude 3 launched in March, it caused a stir by beating OpenAI's GPT-4 — which powers ChatGPT — in key tests used to benchmark the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models. 

Claude 3 Opus seemingly became the new top dog in large language benchmarks — topping these self-reported tests that range from high school exams to reasoning tests. Its sibling LLMs — Claude 3 Sonnet and Haiku — also score highly compared with OpenAI's models.