Algorithmic Fidelity of Large Language Models in Generating Synthetic German Public Opinions: A Case Study

In recent research, large language models (LLMs) have been increasingly used to investigate public opinions. This study investigates the algorithmic fidelity of LLMs, i.e., the ability to replicate the socio-cultural context and nuanced opinions of human participants. Using open-ended survey data from the German Longitudinal Election Studies (GLES), we prompt different LLMs to generate synthetic public opinions reflective of German subpopulations by incorporating demographic features into the persona prompts. Our results show that Llama performs better than other LLMs at representing subpopulations, particularly when there is lower opinion diversity within those groups. Our findings further reveal that the LLM performs better for supporters of left-leaning parties like The Greens and The Left compared to other parties, and matches the least with the right-party AfD. Additionally, the inclusion or exclusion of specific variables in the prompts can significantly impact the models' predictions. These findings underscore the importance of aligning LLMs to more effectively model diverse public opinions while minimizing political biases and enhancing robustness in representativeness.

Vox Populi, Vox AI? Using Language Models to Estimate German Public Opinion

The recent development of large language models (LLMs) has spurred discussions about whether LLM-generated "synthetic samples" could complement or replace traditional surveys, considering their training data potentially reflects attitudes and behaviors prevalent in the population. A number of mostly US-based studies have prompted LLMs to mimic survey respondents, with some of them finding that the responses closely match the survey data. However, several contextual factors related to the relationship between the respective target population and LLM training data might affect the generalizability of such findings. In this study, we investigate the extent to which LLMs can estimate public opinion in Germany, using the example of vote choice. We generate a synthetic sample of personas matching the individual characteristics of the 2017 German Longitudinal Election Study respondents. We ask the LLM GPT-3.5 to predict each respondent's vote choice and compare these predictions to the survey-based estimates on the aggregate and subgroup levels. We find that GPT-3.5 does not predict citizens' vote choice accurately, exhibiting a bias towards the Green and Left parties. While the LLM captures the tendencies of "typical" voter subgroups, such as partisans, it misses the multifaceted factors swaying individual voter choices. By examining the LLM-based prediction of voting behavior in a new context, our study contributes to the growing body of research about the conditions under which LLMs can be leveraged for studying public opinion. The findings point to disparities in opinion representation in LLMs and underscore the limitations in applying them for public opinion estimation.

The Potential and Challenges of Evaluating Attitudes, Opinions, and Values in Large Language Models

Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) have sparked wide interest in validating and comprehending the human-like cognitive-behavioral traits LLMs may have. These cognitive-behavioral traits include typically Attitudes, Opinions, Values (AOV). However, measuring AOV embedded within LLMs remains opaque, and different evaluation methods may yield different results. This has led to a lack of clarity on how different studies are related to each other and how they can be interpreted. This paper aims to bridge this gap by providing an overview of recent works on the evaluation of AOV in LLMs. Moreover, we survey related approaches in different stages of the evaluation pipeline in these works. By doing so, we address the potential and challenges with respect to understanding the model, human-AI alignment, and downstream application in social sciences. Finally, we provide practical insights into evaluation methods, model enhancement, and interdisciplinary collaboration, thereby contributing to the evolving landscape of evaluating AOV in LLMs.

Seeing ChatGPT Through Students' Eyes: An Analysis of TikTok Data

Advanced large language models like ChatGPT have gained considerable attention recently, including among students. However, while the debate on ChatGPT in academia is making waves, more understanding is needed among lecturers and teachers on how students use and perceive ChatGPT. To address this gap, we analyzed the content on ChatGPT available on TikTok in February 2023. TikTok is a rapidly growing social media platform popular among individuals under 30. Specifically, we analyzed the content of the 100 most popular videos in English tagged with #chatgpt, which collectively garnered over 250 million views. Most of the videos we studied promoted the use of ChatGPT for tasks like writing essays or code. In addition, many videos discussed AI detectors, with a focus on how other tools can help to transform ChatGPT output to fool these detectors. This also mirrors the discussion among educators on how to treat ChatGPT as lecturers and teachers in teaching and grading. What is, however, missing from the analyzed clips on TikTok are videos that discuss ChatGPT producing content that is nonsensical or unfaithful to the training data.