arXiv subjects

Alessandra Parziale

Publications and source records attributed to Alessandra Parziale.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

SCOPE: A Dataset of Stereotyped Prompts for Counterfactual Fairness Assessment of LLMs

Large Language Models (LLMs) now serve as the foundation for a wide range of applications, from conversational assistants to decision support tools, making the issue of fairness in their results increasingly important. Previous studies have shown that LLM outputs can shift when prompts reference different demographic groups, even when intent and semantic content remain constant. However, existing resources for probing such disparities rely primarily on small, template-based counterfactual examples or fixed sentence pairs. These benchmarks offer limited linguistic diversity, narrow topical coverage, and little support for analyzing how communicative intent affects model behavior. To address these limitations, we introduce SCOPE (Stereotype-COnditioned Prompts for Evaluation), a large-scale dataset of counterfactual prompt pairs designed to enable systematic investigation of group-sensitive behavior in LLMs. SCOPE contains 241,280 prompts organized into 120,640 counterfactual pairs, each grounded in one of 1,438 topics and spanning nine bias dimensions and 1,536 demographic groups. All prompts are generated under four distinct communicative intents: Question, Recommendation, Direction, and Clarification, ensuring broad coverage of common interaction styles. This resource provides a controlled, semantically aligned, and intent-aware basis for evaluating fairness, robustness, and counterfactual consistency.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2026

Once Upon a Team: Investigating Bias in LLM-Driven Software Team Composition and Task Allocation

LLMs are increasingly used to boost productivity and support software engineering tasks. However, when applied to socially sensitive decisions such as team composition and task allocation, they raise concerns of fairness. Prior studies have revealed that LLMs may reproduce stereotypes; however, these analyses remain exploratory and examine sensitive attributes in isolation. This study investigates whether LLMs exhibit bias in team composition and task assignment by analyzing the combined effects of candidates' country and pronouns. Using three LLMs and 3,000 simulated decisions, we find systematic disparities: demographic attributes significantly shaped both selection likelihood and task allocation, even when accounting for expertise-related factors. Task distributions further reflected stereotypes, with technical and leadership roles unevenly assigned across groups. Our findings indicate that LLMs exacerbate demographic inequities in software engineering contexts, underscoring the need for fairness-aware assessment.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

Toward Systematic Counterfactual Fairness Evaluation of Large Language Models: The CAFFE Framework

Nowadays, Large Language Models (LLMs) are foundational components of modern software systems. As their influence grows, concerns about fairness have become increasingly pressing. Prior work has proposed metamorphic testing to detect fairness issues, applying input transformations to uncover inconsistencies in model behavior. This paper introduces an alternative perspective for testing counterfactual fairness in LLMs, proposing a structured and intent-aware framework coined CAFFE (Counterfactual Assessment Framework for Fairness Evaluation). Inspired by traditional non-functional testing, CAFFE (1) formalizes LLM-Fairness test cases through explicitly defined components, including prompt intent, conversational context, input variants, expected fairness thresholds, and test environment configuration, (2) assists testers by automatically generating targeted test data, and (3) evaluates model responses using semantic similarity metrics. Our experiments, conducted on three different architectural families of LLM, demonstrate that CAFFE achieves broader bias coverage and more reliable detection of unfair behavior than existing metamorphic approaches.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

Contextual Fairness-Aware Practices in ML: A Cost-Effective Empirical Evaluation

As machine learning (ML) systems become central to critical decision-making, concerns over fairness and potential biases have increased. To address this, the software engineering (SE) field has introduced bias mitigation techniques aimed at enhancing fairness in ML models at various stages. Additionally, recent research suggests that standard ML engineering practices can also improve fairness; these practices, known as fairness-aware practices, have been cataloged across each stage of the ML development life cycle. However, fairness remains context-dependent, with different domains requiring customized solutions. Furthermore, existing specific bias mitigation methods may sometimes degrade model performance, raising ongoing discussions about the trade-offs involved. In this paper, we empirically investigate fairness-aware practices from two perspectives: contextual and cost-effectiveness. The contextual evaluation explores how these practices perform in various application domains, identifying areas where specific fairness adjustments are particularly effective. The cost-effectiveness evaluation considers the trade-off between fairness improvements and potential performance costs. Our findings provide insights into how context influences the effectiveness of fairness-aware practices. This research aims to guide SE practitioners in selecting practices that achieve fairness with minimal performance costs, supporting the development of ethical ML systems.

cs.SE↗