arXiv Computation and Language By Mehrdad Ghassabi, Audrina Ebrahimi, Zahra Zojaji, Amin Milani Fard

Language Models Show Conformity Bias in RAG: When the Majority Endorses a Poisoned Claim

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Retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) can expose language models to misleading evidence. In a study of 200 SciFact questions, the Gemma‑3‑12b model’s ability to detect poisoned claims dropped from 25% when a single poisoned document was present to 10% when six mutually agreeing poisoned documents dominated the context. The majority condition caused 34 of 38 questions to shift from detected to undetected, indicating a conformity‑like bias.

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