Decision-Making Behavior Evaluation Framework for LLMs under Uncertain Context

TL;DR

This paper introduces a behavioral economics framework to evaluate decision-making patterns of large language models, revealing human-like biases and significant variations influenced by socio-demographic features, with implications for ethical deployment.

Contribution

It develops a novel evaluation framework based on behavioral economics to analyze LLM decision behaviors and uncovers variations influenced by socio-demographic attributes.

Findings

LLMs exhibit human-like risk and loss aversion behaviors.

Significant differences in decision patterns across different LLMs.

Socio-demographic features impact LLM decision-making tendencies.

Abstract

When making decisions under uncertainty, individuals often deviate from rational behavior, which can be evaluated across three dimensions: risk preference, probability weighting, and loss aversion. Given the widespread use of large language models (LLMs) in decision-making processes, it is crucial to assess whether their behavior aligns with human norms and ethical expectations or exhibits potential biases. Several empirical studies have investigated the rationality and social behavior performance of LLMs, yet their internal decision-making tendencies and capabilities remain inadequately understood. This paper proposes a framework, grounded in behavioral economics, to evaluate the decision-making behaviors of LLMs. Through a multiple-choice-list experiment, we estimate the degree of risk preference, probability weighting, and loss aversion in a context-free setting for three commercial LLMs: ChatGPT-4.0-Turbo, Claude-3-Opus, and Gemini-1.0-pro. Our results reveal that LLMs generally exhibit patterns similar to humans, such as risk aversion and loss aversion, with a tendency to overweight small probabilities. However, there are significant variations in the degree to which these behaviors are expressed across different LLMs. We also explore their behavior when embedded with socio-demographic features, uncovering significant disparities. For instance, when modeled with attributes of sexual minority groups or physical disabilities, Claude-3-Opus displays increased risk aversion, leading to more conservative choices. These findings underscore the need for careful consideration of the ethical implications and potential biases in deploying LLMs in decision-making scenarios. Therefore, this study advocates for developing standards and guidelines to ensure that LLMs operate within ethical boundaries while enhancing their utility in complex decision-making environments.