# GPT has become financially literate: Insights from financial literacy tests of GPT and a preliminary test of how people use it as a source of advice

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.00649 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.00649/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Aug 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07682/) (2022)
- [Beyond the Imitation Game: Quantifying and extrapolating the capabilities of language models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.04615/) (2022)
- [How is ChatGPT's behavior changing over time?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09009/) (2023)
- [Can ChatGPT Forecast Stock Price Movements? Return Predictability and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07619/) (2023)
- [GPT as Knowledge Worker: A Zero-Shot Evaluation of (AI)CPA Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04408/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [A Survey of Large Language Models for Financial Applications: Progress, Prospects and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11903/) (2024)
- [A Scoping Review of ChatGPT Research in Accounting and Finance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05731/) (2024)
- [Exposing Product Bias in LLM Investment Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.08750/) (2025)
- [Can AI Help with Your Personal Finances?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19784/) (2024)
- [From Information to Delegation: Mapping Human-AI Financial Decision Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02100/) (2026)
- [Trustworthy FinAInce: Unpacking How AI-Mediated Financial Advice is Judged](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.20989/) (2026)
- [FairLMs: A Turnkey Library for Fairness in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21296/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We assess the ability of GPT -- a large language model -- to serve as a financial robo-advisor for the masses, by using a financial literacy test. Davinci and ChatGPT based on GPT-3.5 score 66% and 65% on the financial literacy test, respectively, compared to a baseline of 33%. However, ChatGPT based on GPT-4 achieves a near-perfect 99% score, pointing to financial literacy becoming an emergent ability of state-of-the-art models. We use the Judge-Advisor System and a savings dilemma to illustrate how researchers might assess advice-utilization from large language models. We also present a number of directions for future research.