# Exploring Accuracy-Fairness Trade-off in Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.14500 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14500/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [A Survey on Bias and Fairness in Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.09635/) (2019)
- [Large Language Models Encode Clinical Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.13138/) (2022)
- [Model soups: averaging weights of multiple fine-tuned models improves accuracy without increasing inference time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05482/) (2022)
- [Ethical and social risks of harm from Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.04359/) (2021)
- [Language (Technology) is Power: A Critical Survey of "Bias" in NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14050/) (2020)
- [Improving alignment of dialogue agents via targeted human judgements](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14375/) (2022)
- [Is ChatGPT a General-Purpose Natural Language Processing Task Solver?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.06476/) (2023)
- [Bias in Bios: A Case Study of Semantic Representation Bias in a High-Stakes Setting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.09451/) (2019)
- [Counterfactual Data Augmentation for Mitigating Gender Stereotypes in Languages with Rich Morphology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04571/) (2019)
- [Language Generation Models Can Cause Harm: So What Can We Do About It? An Actionable Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07700/) (2022)
- [Fairness in Large Language Models: A Taxonomic Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01349/) (2024)
- [Designing Heterogeneous LLM Agents for Financial Sentiment Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.05799/) (2024)
- [NoisyTune: A Little Noise Can Help You Finetune Pretrained Language Models Better](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.12024/) (2022)
- [Three-Way Trade-Off in Multi-Objective Learning: Optimization, Generalization and Conflict-Avoidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.20057/) (2023)
- [Should We Attend More or Less? Modulating Attention for Fairness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13088/) (2023)
- [Mitigating Unfairness via Evolutionary Multi-objective Ensemble Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.16754/) (2022)
- [Addressing Both Statistical and Causal Gender Fairness in NLP Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00463/) (2024)
- [Multi-Objective Neural Architecture Search by Learning Search Space Partitions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00291/) (2024)

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

- [Guiding LLM Decision-Making with Fairness Reward Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.11344/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) have made significant strides in the field of artificial intelligence, showcasing their ability to interact with humans and influence human cognition through information dissemination. However, recent studies have brought to light instances of bias inherent within these LLMs, presenting a critical issue that demands attention. In our research, we delve deeper into the intricate challenge of harmonising accuracy and fairness in the enhancement of LLMs. While improving accuracy can indeed enhance overall LLM performance, it often occurs at the expense of fairness. Overemphasising optimisation of one metric invariably leads to a significant degradation of the other. This underscores the necessity of taking into account multiple considerations during the design and optimisation phases of LLMs. Therefore, we advocate for reformulating the LLM training process as a multi-objective learning task. Our investigation reveals that multi-objective evolutionary learning (MOEL) methodologies offer promising avenues for tackling this challenge. Our MOEL framework enables the simultaneous optimisation of both accuracy and fairness metrics, resulting in a Pareto-optimal set of LLMs. In summary, our study sheds valuable lights on the delicate equilibrium between accuracy and fairness within LLMs, which is increasingly significant for their real-world applications. By harnessing MOEL, we present a promising pathway towards fairer and more efficacious AI technologies.