arXiv Machine Learning

Accuracy Is Not Enough: A Cross-Architecture Audit of Demographic Bias in Deep Knowledge Tracing

The study audits demographic bias across four deep knowledge tracing architectures—DKT, DKVMN, SAKT, and AKT—using two large public datasets (Eedi and OULAD). It finds that bias is context‑dependent: socioeconomic bias is significant on Eedi, while gender bias appears on OULAD for most models. The most accurate model, AKT, also exhibits the greatest bias, and standard mitigation techniques such as reweighting and adversarial debiasing fail to reduce bias without sacrificing accuracy.

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 10

Let's Unlearn Stereotypes Before Decision-Making: Assessing the Impact of Intrinsic Bias Mitigation on Downstream Fairness in LLMs

arXiv:2509. 16462v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used in high-stakes decision-making systems, where biased predictions can reinforce social and economic disparities.

By Mina Arzaghi, Alireza Dehghanpour Farashah, Florian Carichon, Jean-Fran\c{c}ois Plante, Golnoosh Farnadi
arXiv AI
Oct 16

Time to Fake It: Continual Machine Learning Intensifies Unfairness in Deepfake Detection

The paper examines how continual learning (CL) techniques used to update deepfake detectors over time affect fairness across different demographic groups. By training detectors on a chronological series of 11 real-world deepfake generation methods, the authors track four fairness dimensions and find that accuracy loss often worsens unfairness, while fairness gains are rare. The study reveals that inequitable forgetting is linked to representation learning rather than mere underrepresentation, urging CL methods to consider social outcomes when balancing stability and plasticity.

By Kajaree Das, Oliver B\"ose, Subarnaduti Paul, Gabriel Storch, Martin Mundt
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 16

Beyond Accuracy: Measuring Bias Acknowledgment in Chain-of-Thought Reasoning for Responsible AI Evaluation

arXiv:2606. 15127v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Reasoning models are increasingly used in settings where the final answer is not the only object of review: educational tools may show students intermediate steps, decision-support systems may require human oversight, and audit workflows may inspect traces for misleading or biased input.

By Xian Sun, Wei Gao, Yingshuo Wang, Lingdong Kong, Yanhang Li, Zhichao Fan, Zexin Zhuang, Wenlong Dong, Zhiyuan Zheng, Hrishikesh Paranjape, Abhishek Mandal, Johnny R. Zhang
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 27

Lower-Resource, Higher Scores: Language Bias in LLM Evaluators

The paper demonstrates that large language model (LLM) evaluators, whether reward‑model based or prompted LLM‑as‑a‑Judge, exhibit significant language bias in multilingual settings. Experiments with semantically identical instruction‑response pairs across 23 languages reveal that lower‑resource languages receive higher scores, a bias that persists across eight open‑weight evaluators and is not detectable by standard pairwise accuracy metrics. The authors link the bias to model uncertainty and language identity, showing it cannot be explained by content difficulty alone.

By Ej Zhou, Lucas Resck, Zheng Hui, Anna Korhonen
arXiv AI
Oct 15

Need or Reputation? Region, National Income, and Academic Status in LLM Gatekeeping Decisions

The study examines how large language models (LLMs) decide who gets access to restricted academic resources in a controlled simulation. Models consistently favor PhD candidates, but their preferences shift with the requester's region and academic status. Large proprietary LLMs tend to favor low‑income or Global South applicants, while smaller open‑weight models favor the Global North, suggesting that model scale, alignment, and training data influence gatekeeping biases.

By Nouar AlDahoul, Hezerul Abdul Karim, Myles Joshua Toledo Tan