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Classifying Genetic Essentialist Biases using Large Language Models

Riemann, Ritsaart and Lynch, Kate E. and Gawronski, Stefan A. and Chan, Jack and Griffiths, Paul E. (2024) Classifying Genetic Essentialist Biases using Large Language Models. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The rapid rise of generative AI, including LLMs, has prompted a great deal of concern, both within and beyond academia. One of these concerns is that generative models embed, reproduce, and therein potentially perpetuate all manner of bias. The present study offers an alternative perspective: exploring the potential of LLMs to detect bias in human generated text. Our target is genetic essentialism in obesity discourse in Australian print media. We develop and deploy an LLM-based classification model to evaluate a large sample of relevant articles (n=26,163). We show that our model detects genetic essentialist biases as reliably as human experts; and find that, while genes figure less prominently in popular discussions of obesity than previous work might suggest, when genetic information is invoked, it is often presented in a biased way. Implications for future work are discussed.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Riemann, Ritsaartreimann.ritsaart@gmail.com0000-0003-4742-2887
Lynch, Kate E.kate.lynch@unimelb.edu.au0000-0001-8800-2323
Gawronski, Stefan A.stefan.gawronski@sydney.edu.au
Chan, Jack
Griffiths, Paul E.paul.griffiths@sydney.edu.au0000-0002-8657-6873
Keywords: Genetic Essentialism; Bias; Obesity; LLMs; NLP; Automated bias detection
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics
General Issues > Causation
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Judgment and Decision Making
Specific Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User: Dr. Kate E. Lynch
Date Deposited: 01 Dec 2024 13:12
Last Modified: 01 Dec 2024 13:12
Item ID: 24325
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics
General Issues > Causation
Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science > Concepts and Representations
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Judgment and Decision Making
Specific Sciences > Psychology
Date: December 2024
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24325

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