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Main Authors: Allaham, Mowafak, Lokmanoglu, Ayse D., Hart, P. Sol, Nisbet, Erik C.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.13802
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author Allaham, Mowafak
Lokmanoglu, Ayse D.
Hart, P. Sol
Nisbet, Erik C.
author_facet Allaham, Mowafak
Lokmanoglu, Ayse D.
Hart, P. Sol
Nisbet, Erik C.
contents Climate misinformation is a problem that has the potential to be substantially aggravated by the development of Large Language Models (LLMs). In this study we evaluate the potential for LLMs to be part of the solution for mitigating online dis/misinformation rather than the problem. Employing a public expert annotated dataset and a curated sample of social media content we evaluate the performance of proprietary vs. open source LLMs on climate misinformation classification task, comparing them to existing climate-focused computer-assisted tools and expert assessments. Results show (1) open-source models substantially under-perform in classifying climate misinformation compared to proprietary models, (2) existing climate-focused computer-assisted tools leveraging expert-annotated datasets continues to outperform many of proprietary models, including GPT-4o, and (3) demonstrate the efficacy and generalizability of fine-tuning GPT-3.5-turbo on expert annotated dataset in classifying claims about climate change at the equivalency of climate change experts with over 20 years of experience in climate communication. These findings highlight 1) the importance of incorporating human-oversight, such as incorporating expert-annotated datasets in training LLMs, for governance tasks that require subject-matter expertise like classifying climate misinformation, and 2) the potential for LLMs in facilitating civil society organizations to engage in various governance tasks such as classifying false or misleading claims in domains beyond climate change such as politics and health science.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_13802
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhancing LLMs for Governance with Human Oversight: Evaluating and Aligning LLMs on Expert Classification of Climate Misinformation for Detecting False or Misleading Claims about Climate Change
Allaham, Mowafak
Lokmanoglu, Ayse D.
Hart, P. Sol
Nisbet, Erik C.
Computers and Society
Climate misinformation is a problem that has the potential to be substantially aggravated by the development of Large Language Models (LLMs). In this study we evaluate the potential for LLMs to be part of the solution for mitigating online dis/misinformation rather than the problem. Employing a public expert annotated dataset and a curated sample of social media content we evaluate the performance of proprietary vs. open source LLMs on climate misinformation classification task, comparing them to existing climate-focused computer-assisted tools and expert assessments. Results show (1) open-source models substantially under-perform in classifying climate misinformation compared to proprietary models, (2) existing climate-focused computer-assisted tools leveraging expert-annotated datasets continues to outperform many of proprietary models, including GPT-4o, and (3) demonstrate the efficacy and generalizability of fine-tuning GPT-3.5-turbo on expert annotated dataset in classifying claims about climate change at the equivalency of climate change experts with over 20 years of experience in climate communication. These findings highlight 1) the importance of incorporating human-oversight, such as incorporating expert-annotated datasets in training LLMs, for governance tasks that require subject-matter expertise like classifying climate misinformation, and 2) the potential for LLMs in facilitating civil society organizations to engage in various governance tasks such as classifying false or misleading claims in domains beyond climate change such as politics and health science.
title Enhancing LLMs for Governance with Human Oversight: Evaluating and Aligning LLMs on Expert Classification of Climate Misinformation for Detecting False or Misleading Claims about Climate Change
topic Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.13802