Middle East AI

This Week arXiv

When Benchmarks are Targets: Revealing the Sensitivity of Large Language Model Leaderboards

arXiv · · Significant research

Summary

Researchers from the National Center for AI in Saudi Arabia investigated the sensitivity of Large Language Model (LLM) leaderboards to minor benchmark perturbations. They found that small changes, like choice order, can shift rankings by up to 8 positions. The study recommends hybrid scoring and warns against over-reliance on simple benchmark evaluations, providing code for further research.

Keywords

LLM · benchmarks · evaluation · leaderboard · sensitivity

Get the weekly digest

Top AI stories from the GCC region, every week.

Related

Data Laundering: Artificially Boosting Benchmark Results through Knowledge Distillation

arXiv ·

Researchers at MBZUAI have demonstrated a method called "Data Laundering" to artificially boost language model benchmark scores using knowledge distillation. The technique covertly transfers benchmark-specific knowledge, leading to inflated accuracy without genuine improvements in reasoning. The study highlights a vulnerability in current AI evaluation practices and calls for more robust benchmarks.

LLMEffiChecker: Understanding and Testing Efficiency Degradation of Large Language Models

arXiv ·

The paper introduces LLMEffiChecker, a tool to test the computational efficiency robustness of LLMs by identifying vulnerabilities that can significantly degrade performance. LLMEffiChecker uses both white-box (gradient-guided perturbation) and black-box (causal inference-based perturbation) methods to delay the generation of the end-of-sequence token. Experiments on nine public LLMs demonstrate that LLMEffiChecker can substantially increase response latency and energy consumption with minimal input perturbations.

SocialMaze: A Benchmark for Evaluating Social Reasoning in Large Language Models

arXiv ·

MBZUAI researchers introduce SocialMaze, a new benchmark for evaluating social reasoning capabilities in large language models (LLMs). SocialMaze includes six diverse tasks across social reasoning games, daily-life interactions, and digital community platforms, emphasizing deep reasoning, dynamic interaction, and information uncertainty. Experiments show that LLMs vary in handling dynamic interactions, degrade under uncertainty, but can be improved via fine-tuning on curated reasoning examples.

SectEval: Evaluating the Latent Sectarian Preferences of Large Language Models

arXiv ·

The paper introduces SectEval, a new benchmark to evaluate sectarian biases in LLMs concerning Sunni and Shia Islam, available in English and Hindi. Results show significant inconsistencies in LLM responses based on language, with some models favoring Shia responses in English but Sunni in Hindi. Location-based experiments further reveal that advanced models adapt their responses based on the user's claimed country, while smaller models exhibit a consistent Sunni-leaning bias.