# Quantifying Risk Propensities of Large Language Models: Ethical Focus and Bias Detection through Role-Play

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.08884 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.08884/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 61 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03300/) (2020)
- [GLUE: A Multi-Task Benchmark and Analysis Platform for Natural Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.07461/) (2018)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [Gemma 2: Improving Open Language Models at a Practical Size](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00118/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Bias and Fairness in Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.09635/) (2019)
- [A Survey on Evaluation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03109/) (2023)
- [ChatGLM: A Family of Large Language Models from GLM-130B to GLM-4 All Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12793/) (2024)
- [Language (Technology) is Power: A Critical Survey of "Bias" in NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14050/) (2020)
- [ExpeL: LLM Agents Are Experiential Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10144/) (2023)
- [Discovering Language Model Behaviors with Model-Written Evaluations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09251/) (2022)
- [Toxicity in ChatGPT: Analyzing Persona-assigned Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05335/) (2023)
- [R-Judge: Benchmarking Safety Risk Awareness for LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10019/) (2024)
- [Predictability and Surprise in Large Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.07785/) (2022)
- [Do-Not-Answer: A Dataset for Evaluating Safeguards in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.13387/) (2023)
- [Do the Rewards Justify the Means? Measuring Trade-Offs Between Rewards and Ethical Behavior in the MACHIAVELLI Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03279/) (2023)
- [In-Context Impersonation Reveals Large Language Models' Strengths and Biases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14930/) (2023)
- [Don't Listen To Me: Understanding and Exploring Jailbreak Prompts of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17336/) (2024)
- [Unsupervised Text Style Transfer using Language Models as Discriminators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.11749/) (2018)
- [Are Large Language Models Consistent over Value-laden Questions?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02996/) (2024)
- [The Ethics of Interaction: Mitigating Security Threats in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12273/) (2024)
- [Meet Your Favorite Character: Open-domain Chatbot Mimicking Fictional Characters with only a Few Utterances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.10825/) (2022)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models with Psychometrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17675/) (2024)
- [PATIENT-Psi: Using Large Language Models to Simulate Patients for Training Mental Health Professionals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19660/) (2024)
- [Exploring the Frontiers of LLMs in Psychological Applications: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01519/) (2024)
- [ProgressGym: Alignment with a Millennium of Moral Progress](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.20087/) (2024)
- [CRiskEval: A Chinese Multi-Level Risk Evaluation Benchmark Dataset for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04752/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Value Compass Benchmarks: A Platform for Fundamental and Validated Evaluation of LLMs Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.07071/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As Large Language Models (LLMs) become more prevalent, concerns about their safety, ethics, and potential biases have risen. Systematically evaluating LLMs' risk decision-making tendencies and attitudes, particularly in the ethical domain, has become crucial. This study innovatively applies the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) scale from cognitive science to LLMs and proposes a novel Ethical Decision-Making Risk Attitude Scale (EDRAS) to assess LLMs' ethical risk attitudes in depth. We further propose a novel approach integrating risk scales and role-playing to quantitatively evaluate systematic biases in LLMs. Through systematic evaluation and analysis of multiple mainstream LLMs, we assessed the "risk personalities" of LLMs across multiple domains, with a particular focus on the ethical domain, and revealed and quantified LLMs' systematic biases towards different groups. This research helps understand LLMs' risk decision-making and ensure their safe and reliable application. Our approach provides a tool for identifying and mitigating biases, contributing to fairer and more trustworthy AI systems. The code and data are available.