The paper proposes a method for culturally aligning large language models (LLMs) using soft prompt tuning optimized via Differential Evolution (DE). Unlike traditional fine‑tuning or reinforcement learning, this approach keeps model weights frozen and requires no preference data, instead leveraging aggregated survey scores from Hofstede's Value Survey Module (VSM13). Experiments on four countries and four instruction‑tuned models show that DE‑optimized prompts reduce cultural discrepancy, improve agreement with the World Values Survey, and are preferred in blinded pairwise evaluations by LLM judges.
By Reem I. Masoud, Martin Ferianc, Philip Treleaven, Miguel Rodrigues
Large language models (LLMs) are used worldwide, yet disproportionately reflect Western values, limiting their ability to represent diverse value systems. We introduce PLURAL, a large-scale, value-focused preference dataset grounded in the Integrated Values Survey (IVS), a nationally representative survey spanning 92 countries.
arXiv:2607. 08034v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are used worldwide, yet disproportionately reflect Western values, limiting their ability to represent diverse value systems.
By Dhruv Agarwal, Anya Shukla, Tanya Goyal, Aditya Vashistha
arXiv:2609.00565v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Cultural fine-tuning has become the de facto paradigm for building culture-aware large language models (LLMs), yet existing optimization exclusively...
By Jingshen Zhang, Shaoyang Xu, Wenxuan Zhang
The paper introduces Population Fidelity, an evaluation framework for assessing how well large language models (LLMs) represent human population attitudes. It focuses on three dimensions: group-level accuracy, between-group variation, and the structure of that variation. Using the framework, the authors replicate a prior study on machine bias and test cultural fine-tuning, finding that while fine-tuning improves overall alignment, it does not enhance representation of within-population differences.
By Neemias B. da Silva, Martin Lukk, Ali Sutani, Abhishek Moturu, Harris Yang, Daniel Silver, Matt Ratto, Thiago H. Silva
The paper investigates how preference tuning—optimizing language models with explicit preference signals—behaves when applied to new domains. It systematically compares five alignment objectives and several adaptation strategies, such as target‑domain supervised fine‑tuning and pseudo‑labeling, across summarization, question‑answering helpfulness, and safety tasks. Results show that while pseudo‑labeling reduces domain‑shift degradation, it also causes mode collapse, highlighting a trade‑off between generalization and diversity.
By Constantinos Karouzos, Xingwei Tan, Nikolaos Aletras