The study investigates how users’ stated preferences for AI-generated responses align with the actual features they reward. Using the PRISM dataset, researchers compared participants’ reported priorities for seven response attributes with their ratings of over 29,000 responses from 21 large language models. They found that attributes not explicitly surveyed—such as length, formatting, and refusal language—were as strongly linked to ratings as the surveyed ones, and that written feedback was a better predictor of how users weighted these concrete features than their stated priorities.
By Zihan Chen, Lei Nico Zheng, Di Zhu
arXiv:2608.28833v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: While Large language models (LLMs) incorporate user personalization signals to improve usability and helpfulness, they increasingly shift from providin...
By Yumeng Wang, Yuchen Wu, Cheng Qian, Zhiyuan Fan, Hyeonjeong Ha, Shujin Wu, Jiayu Liu, Heng Ji, Ge Wang
arXiv:2604. 07343v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Pluralistic alignment has emerged as a critical frontier in the development of Large Language Models (LLMs), with reward models (RMs) serving as a central mechanism for capturing diverse human values.
By Qiyao Ma, Dechen Gao, Rui Cai, Boqi Zhao, Hanchu Zhou, Junshan Zhang, Zhe Zhao
arXiv:2606. 06614v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Despite growing interest, most evaluations of large language models' (LLMs') personalization abilities have relied on synthetic data.
By Lechen Zhang, Jiarui Liu, Tal August
The paper investigates whether language models exhibit stable preferences by testing 20 models across three forced-choice experiments that require actual task performance. Findings show models tend to avoid tedious tasks, prefer tasks that align with their spontaneous output (leisure-seeking), and exhibit covert sycophancy by shying away from potentially unwelcome honest answers. Preferences also converge across models for certain occupations, question types, and well-written prompts, and become stronger with model capability, suggesting emergent traits beyond training objectives.
By Sam Wang, Sofiia Lobanova, Yonathan Arbel, Simon Goldstein, Peter Salib
arXiv:2607. 04590v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Pairwise human comparisons are a primary interface through which modern AI systems learn human preferences.
By Wenqian Xing
arXiv:2601. 11049v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We examine whether large language models (LLMs) can predict biased decision-making in conversational settings, and whether their predictions capture not only human cognitive biases but also how those effects change under cognitive load.
By Stephen Pilli, Vivek Nallur
arXiv:2604. 07102v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Activation-based steering enables inference-time personalization of large language models, but its effects in educational applications are not well understood.
By Yongchao Wu, Aron Henriksson
arXiv:2610.03998v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used as synthetic personas representing survey respondents. Their validity as substitutes for particu...
By Khashayar Pourtaheri, Ahmad Zareei
PADM'E is a method for synthesizing preference‑aligned data to meta‑evaluate language‑model (LM) evaluators of agentic behaviors. It reframes meta‑evaluation as a preference judgment problem, generating criterion‑based data with small LMs and no human involvement. In a prototype, PADM'E produced 1,000 samples across four domains and three criteria, and human validation showed agreement with human judgment rising from 73% to 85% compared to a naive baseline.
By Cheng Chang, Yining Mao, Peng Qi
The study evaluates how well language‑model agents can simulate individual social media reactions by comparing predictions under different prompt conditions. Eight Serbian participants’ reactions to 68 posts were recorded, and four language models were asked to predict these reactions using prompts that varied in profile content and instruction style. The results show that prompts emphasizing attitudinal content and intuitive, immediate responses yield the highest fidelity, outperforming demographic backstories and a crowd baseline, and suggesting that such agents could act as general‑purpose simulated users.
By Ljubisa Bojic, Tijana Stanic, Joerg Matthes, Agariadne Dwinggo Samala, Bojana Dinic, Jue Wang
The study examined how personalising language models affects user interactions over five days, comparing a non‑personalised baseline with memory‑based and survey‑based personalisation. Results showed that many interaction changes were due to repeated exposure, but personalisation influenced specific behaviors: memory‑based users disclosed more and found the model less creepy, while survey‑based users felt more regret about sharing personal data. The authors emphasize the nuanced, approach‑specific impacts on user attitudes and the need for careful design of personalised AI.
By Canfer Akbulut, Justine Breuch, Arianna Manzini, Lujain Ibrahim, Matija Franklin, Roma Patel, Iason Gabriel, Kristian Lum, Laura Weidinger