HumBEL: A Human-in-the-Loop Approach for Evaluating Demographic Factors of Language Models in Human-Machine Conversations

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Sicilia, Anthony, Gates, Jennifer C., Alikhani, Malihe
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Sicilia, Anthony
Gates, Jennifer C.
Alikhani, Malihe
author_facet Sicilia, Anthony
Gates, Jennifer C.
Alikhani, Malihe
contents While demographic factors like age and gender change the way people talk, and in particular, the way people talk to machines, there is little investigation into how large pre-trained language models (LMs) can adapt to these changes. To remedy this gap, we consider how demographic factors in LM language skills can be measured to determine compatibility with a target demographic. We suggest clinical techniques from Speech Language Pathology, which has norms for acquisition of language skills in humans. We conduct evaluation with a domain expert (i.e., a clinically licensed speech language pathologist), and also propose automated techniques to complement clinical evaluation at scale. Empirically, we focus on age, finding LM capability varies widely depending on task: GPT-3.5 mimics the ability of humans ranging from age 6-15 at tasks requiring inference, and simultaneously, outperforms a typical 21 year old at memorization. GPT-3.5 also has trouble with social language use, exhibiting less than 50% of the tested pragmatic skills. Findings affirm the importance of considering demographic alignment and conversational goals when using LMs as public-facing tools. Code, data, and a package will be available.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2305_14195
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle HumBEL: A Human-in-the-Loop Approach for Evaluating Demographic Factors of Language Models in Human-Machine Conversations
Sicilia, Anthony
Gates, Jennifer C.
Alikhani, Malihe
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
While demographic factors like age and gender change the way people talk, and in particular, the way people talk to machines, there is little investigation into how large pre-trained language models (LMs) can adapt to these changes. To remedy this gap, we consider how demographic factors in LM language skills can be measured to determine compatibility with a target demographic. We suggest clinical techniques from Speech Language Pathology, which has norms for acquisition of language skills in humans. We conduct evaluation with a domain expert (i.e., a clinically licensed speech language pathologist), and also propose automated techniques to complement clinical evaluation at scale. Empirically, we focus on age, finding LM capability varies widely depending on task: GPT-3.5 mimics the ability of humans ranging from age 6-15 at tasks requiring inference, and simultaneously, outperforms a typical 21 year old at memorization. GPT-3.5 also has trouble with social language use, exhibiting less than 50% of the tested pragmatic skills. Findings affirm the importance of considering demographic alignment and conversational goals when using LMs as public-facing tools. Code, data, and a package will be available.
title HumBEL: A Human-in-the-Loop Approach for Evaluating Demographic Factors of Language Models in Human-Machine Conversations
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.14195