Assessing the Reliability of LLMs Annotations in the Context of Demographic Bias and Model Explanation

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Main Authors: Mohammadi, Hadi, Shahedi, Tina, Mosteiro, Pablo, Poesio, Massimo, Bagheri, Ayoub, Giachanou, Anastasia
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Mohammadi, Hadi
Shahedi, Tina
Mosteiro, Pablo
Poesio, Massimo
Bagheri, Ayoub
Giachanou, Anastasia
author_facet Mohammadi, Hadi
Shahedi, Tina
Mosteiro, Pablo
Poesio, Massimo
Bagheri, Ayoub
Giachanou, Anastasia
contents Understanding the sources of variability in annotations is crucial for developing fair NLP systems, especially for tasks like sexism detection where demographic bias is a concern. This study investigates the extent to which annotator demographic features influence labeling decisions compared to text content. Using a Generalized Linear Mixed Model, we quantify this inf luence, finding that while statistically present, demographic factors account for a minor fraction ( 8%) of the observed variance, with tweet content being the dominant factor. We then assess the reliability of Generative AI (GenAI) models as annotators, specifically evaluating if guiding them with demographic personas improves alignment with human judgments. Our results indicate that simplistic persona prompting often fails to enhance, and sometimes degrades, performance compared to baseline models. Furthermore, explainable AI (XAI) techniques reveal that model predictions rely heavily on content-specific tokens related to sexism, rather than correlates of demographic characteristics. We argue that focusing on content-driven explanations and robust annotation protocols offers a more reliable path towards fairness than potentially persona simulation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_13138
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Assessing the Reliability of LLMs Annotations in the Context of Demographic Bias and Model Explanation
Mohammadi, Hadi
Shahedi, Tina
Mosteiro, Pablo
Poesio, Massimo
Bagheri, Ayoub
Giachanou, Anastasia
Computation and Language
Understanding the sources of variability in annotations is crucial for developing fair NLP systems, especially for tasks like sexism detection where demographic bias is a concern. This study investigates the extent to which annotator demographic features influence labeling decisions compared to text content. Using a Generalized Linear Mixed Model, we quantify this inf luence, finding that while statistically present, demographic factors account for a minor fraction ( 8%) of the observed variance, with tweet content being the dominant factor. We then assess the reliability of Generative AI (GenAI) models as annotators, specifically evaluating if guiding them with demographic personas improves alignment with human judgments. Our results indicate that simplistic persona prompting often fails to enhance, and sometimes degrades, performance compared to baseline models. Furthermore, explainable AI (XAI) techniques reveal that model predictions rely heavily on content-specific tokens related to sexism, rather than correlates of demographic characteristics. We argue that focusing on content-driven explanations and robust annotation protocols offers a more reliable path towards fairness than potentially persona simulation.
title Assessing the Reliability of LLMs Annotations in the Context of Demographic Bias and Model Explanation
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.13138