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Random Silicon Sampling: Simulating Human Sub-Population Opinion Using a Large Language Model Based on Group-Level Demographic Information

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arxiv 2402.18144 v1 pith:KAOAOF7R submitted 2024-02-28 cs.AI cs.CY

Random Silicon Sampling: Simulating Human Sub-Population Opinion Using a Large Language Model Based on Group-Level Demographic Information

classification cs.AI cs.CY
keywords demographiclanguagemodelsbiasesgrouphumaninformationopinion
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Large language models exhibit societal biases associated with demographic information, including race, gender, and others. Endowing such language models with personalities based on demographic data can enable generating opinions that align with those of humans. Building on this idea, we propose "random silicon sampling," a method to emulate the opinions of the human population sub-group. Our study analyzed 1) a language model that generates the survey responses that correspond with a human group based solely on its demographic distribution and 2) the applicability of our methodology across various demographic subgroups and thematic questions. Through random silicon sampling and using only group-level demographic information, we discovered that language models can generate response distributions that are remarkably similar to the actual U.S. public opinion polls. Moreover, we found that the replicability of language models varies depending on the demographic group and topic of the question, and this can be attributed to inherent societal biases in the models. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of mirroring a group's opinion using only demographic distribution and elucidate the effect of social biases in language models on such simulations.

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Cited by 7 Pith papers

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