Measurement to Meaning: A Validity-Centered Framework for AI Evaluation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Salaudeen, Olawale, Reuel, Anka, Ahmed, Ahmed, Bedi, Suhana, Robertson, Zachary, Sundar, Sudharsan, Domingue, Ben, Wang, Angelina, Koyejo, Sanmi
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Salaudeen, Olawale
Reuel, Anka
Ahmed, Ahmed
Bedi, Suhana
Robertson, Zachary
Sundar, Sudharsan
Domingue, Ben
Wang, Angelina
Koyejo, Sanmi
author_facet Salaudeen, Olawale
Reuel, Anka
Ahmed, Ahmed
Bedi, Suhana
Robertson, Zachary
Sundar, Sudharsan
Domingue, Ben
Wang, Angelina
Koyejo, Sanmi
contents While the capabilities and utility of AI systems have advanced, rigorous norms for evaluating these systems have lagged. Grand claims, such as models achieving general reasoning capabilities, are supported with model performance on narrow benchmarks, like performance on graduate-level exam questions, which provide a limited and potentially misleading assessment. We provide a structured approach for reasoning about the types of evaluative claims that can be made given the available evidence. For instance, our framework helps determine whether performance on a mathematical benchmark is an indication of the ability to solve problems on math tests or instead indicates a broader ability to reason. Our framework is well-suited for the contemporary paradigm in machine learning, where various stakeholders provide measurements and evaluations that downstream users use to validate their claims and decisions. At the same time, our framework also informs the construction of evaluations designed to speak to the validity of the relevant claims. By leveraging psychometrics' breakdown of validity, evaluations can prioritize the most critical facets for a given claim, improving empirical utility and decision-making efficacy. We illustrate our framework through detailed case studies of vision and language model evaluations, highlighting how explicitly considering validity strengthens the connection between evaluation evidence and the claims being made.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_10573
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Measurement to Meaning: A Validity-Centered Framework for AI Evaluation
Salaudeen, Olawale
Reuel, Anka
Ahmed, Ahmed
Bedi, Suhana
Robertson, Zachary
Sundar, Sudharsan
Domingue, Ben
Wang, Angelina
Koyejo, Sanmi
Computers and Society
Machine Learning
While the capabilities and utility of AI systems have advanced, rigorous norms for evaluating these systems have lagged. Grand claims, such as models achieving general reasoning capabilities, are supported with model performance on narrow benchmarks, like performance on graduate-level exam questions, which provide a limited and potentially misleading assessment. We provide a structured approach for reasoning about the types of evaluative claims that can be made given the available evidence. For instance, our framework helps determine whether performance on a mathematical benchmark is an indication of the ability to solve problems on math tests or instead indicates a broader ability to reason. Our framework is well-suited for the contemporary paradigm in machine learning, where various stakeholders provide measurements and evaluations that downstream users use to validate their claims and decisions. At the same time, our framework also informs the construction of evaluations designed to speak to the validity of the relevant claims. By leveraging psychometrics' breakdown of validity, evaluations can prioritize the most critical facets for a given claim, improving empirical utility and decision-making efficacy. We illustrate our framework through detailed case studies of vision and language model evaluations, highlighting how explicitly considering validity strengthens the connection between evaluation evidence and the claims being made.
title Measurement to Meaning: A Validity-Centered Framework for AI Evaluation
topic Computers and Society
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.10573