arXiv AI

From a River in Gilead to the Inference Distributions of Large Language Models: Covert Dialect Bias and Linguistic Profiling at Scale

The paper investigates covert dialect bias in large language models (LLMs) by analyzing how internal probability distributions associate different English varieties—Standard American English, African American Vernacular English, Nigerian Standard English, and Nigerian Pidgin—with housing-related adjectives. Using 260 meaning‑matched sentence quadruples and log‑probability scoring across ten open‑weight LLMs, the study finds that AAVE and NP are consistently linked to more negative adjectives than SAE, with NP experiencing the greatest penalty. The bias varies by context and stereotype cluster, and Nigerian Standard English shows a context‑dependent shift, being favored in formal tenant screening but penalized in more socially proximate scenarios.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 24

How Robust Is Homogeneity Bias in LLMs? Evidence Across Models, Decoding Settings, and Identity Signals

arXiv:2501. 02211v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) reproduce homogeneity bias -- the tendency to portray marginalized groups as more internally similar than dominant groups -- but whether this bias generalizes across models, is stable under different inference settings, or depends on how group identity is signaled remains unstudied.

By Messi H. J. Lee
arXiv AI
Jun 2

IndoBias: A Dual Track Culturally Grounded Benchmark for LLMs Bias Evaluation in Indonesian Languages

arXiv:2606. 01260v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Despite being home to more than 1300 ethnic groups and 700 indigenous languages, bias in Large Language Models has not been fully studied in Indonesia, thus leaving a critical gap in evaluating representational fairness and localized stereotypes within its uniquely vast, multilingual, and diverse sociocultural landscape.

By Ikhlasul Akmal Hanif, Muhammad Falensi Azmi, Filbert Aurelian Tjiaranata, Eryawan Presma Yulianrifat, Fajri Koto
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 1

Political Ideology Shifts in Large Language Models

arXiv:2508.16013v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in politically sensitive contexts, raising concerns about their susceptibility to ideologica...

By Pietro Bernardelle, Stefano Civelli, Leon Fr\"ohling, Riccardo Lunardi, Kevin Roitero, Gianluca Demartini
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 17

Which Demographics do LLMs Default to During Annotation?

The paper investigates which demographic attributes large language models (LLMs) default to when annotating text without explicit demographic cues. By comparing non‑demographic, placebo‑conditioned, and demographic‑conditioned prompts on politeness and offensiveness tasks in the POPQUORN dataset, the authors find that LLMs exhibit notable gender, race, and age influences in their annotations. This contrasts with earlier studies that reported no such effects, highlighting the importance of considering demographic bias in LLM‑based annotation workflows.

By Johannes Sch\"afer, Aidan Combs, Christopher Bagdon, Jiahui Li, Nadine Probol, Lynn Greschner, Sean Papay, Yarik Menchaca Resendiz, Aswathy Velutharambath, Amelie W\"uhrl, Sabine Weber, Roman Klinger
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 3

WinoQueer-NL: Assessing Bias in Dutch Language Models toward LGBTQ+ Identities

The paper introduces WinoQueer-NL, a Dutch adaptation of the English WinoQueer benchmark, designed to assess anti‑queer bias in Dutch language models. After validating the dataset with 43 queer Dutch participants, the authors expanded it to 42,906 sentences and evaluated several Dutch and multilingual models, finding that while overall bias scores appeared neutral, specific identities—particularly transgender and non‑binary—were disproportionately favored in stereotypical sentences. The study underscores the need for culturally grounded datasets to identify and mitigate biases that affect marginalized groups in Dutch NLP systems.

By Jiska Beuk, Gerasimos Spanakis
arXiv AI
Sep 17

Linguistic Triggers of Gender and Racial Bias in Open-Weight LLMs Applied to Recruitment

The paper reports the first systematic audit of open‑weight large language models (LLMs) in hiring contexts, examining how job‑posting language influences recruiter and job‑seeker simulations across six models. It finds that agentic language lowers recruiter scores for female candidates while communal language mitigates this effect, and that coded‑exclusion language sharply reduces recruiter scores for non‑White candidates and discourages non‑White personas from applying. The study also identifies the explicit demographic label as the main causal factor and proposes a concrete pre‑deployment audit protocol aligned with EU and U.S. regulatory requirements.

By Kosuke Kitahara, Nobuhiro Yamaguchi