arXiv subjects

Luca Rettenberger

Publications and source records attributed to Luca Rettenberger.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Large Means Left: Political Bias in Large Language Models Increases with Their Number of Parameters

With the increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence, careful evaluation of inherent biases needs to be conducted to form the basis for alleviating the effects these predispositions can have on users. Large language models (LLMs) are predominantly used by many as a primary source of information for various topics. LLMs frequently make factual errors, fabricate data (hallucinations), or present biases, exposing users to misinformation and influencing opinions. Educating users on their risks is key to responsible use, as bias, unlike hallucinations, cannot be caught through data verification. We quantify the political bias of popular LLMs in the context of the recent vote of the German Bundestag using the score produced by the Wahl-O-Mat. This metric measures the alignment between an individual's political views and the positions of German political parties. We compare the models' alignment scores to identify factors influencing their political preferences. Doing so, we discover a bias toward left-leaning parties, most dominant in larger LLMs. Also, we find that the language we use to communicate with the models affects their political views. Additionally, we analyze the influence of a model's origin and release date and compare the results to the outcome of the recent vote of the Bundestag. Our results imply that LLMs are prone to exhibiting political bias. Large corporations with the necessary means to develop LLMs, thus, knowingly or unknowingly, have a responsibility to contain these biases, as they can influence each voter's decision-making process and inform public opinion in general and at scale.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2024

Assessing Political Bias in Large Language Models

The assessment of bias within Large Language Models (LLMs) has emerged as a critical concern in the contemporary discourse surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the context of their potential impact on societal dynamics. Recognizing and considering political bias within LLM applications is especially important when closing in on the tipping point toward performative prediction. Then, being educated about potential effects and the societal behavior LLMs can drive at scale due to their interplay with human operators. In this way, the upcoming elections of the European Parliament will not remain unaffected by LLMs. We evaluate the political bias of the currently most popular open-source LLMs (instruct or assistant models) concerning political issues within the European Union (EU) from a German voter's perspective. To do so, we use the "Wahl-O-Mat," a voting advice application used in Germany. From the voting advice of the "Wahl-O-Mat" we quantize the degree of alignment of LLMs with German political parties. We show that larger models, such as Llama3-70B, tend to align more closely with left-leaning political parties, while smaller models often remain neutral, particularly when prompted in English. The central finding is that LLMs are similarly biased, with low variances in the alignment concerning a specific party. Our findings underline the importance of rigorously assessing and making bias transparent in LLMs to safeguard the integrity and trustworthiness of applications that employ the capabilities of performative prediction and the invisible hand of machine learning prediction and language generation.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2021

Smart Data Representations: Impact on the Accuracy of Deep Neural Networks

Deep Neural Networks are able to solve many complex tasks with less engineering effort and better performance. However, these networks often use data for training and evaluation without investigating its representation, i.e.~the form of the used data. In the present paper, we analyze the impact of data representations on the performance of Deep Neural Networks using energy time series forecasting. Based on an overview of exemplary data representations, we select four exemplary data representations and evaluate them using two different Deep Neural Network architectures and three forecasting horizons on real-world energy time series. The results show that, depending on the forecast horizon, the same data representations can have a positive or negative impact on the accuracy of Deep Neural Networks.

cs.LG↗