Developing Safe and Responsible Large Language Models -- A Comprehensive Framework

Given the growing concerns around the safety and risks of Large Language Models (LLMs), it is essential to develop methods for mitigating these issues. We introduce Safe and Responsible Large Language Model (SR$_{\text{LLM}}$) , a model designed to enhance the safety of language generation using LLMs. Our approach incorporates a comprehensive LLM safety risk taxonomy and utilizes a dataset annotated by experts that align with this taxonomy. SR$_{\text{LLM}}$ is designed to identify potentially unsafe content and produce benign variations. It employs instruction-based and parameter-efficient fine-tuning methods, making the model not only effective in enhancing safety but also resource-efficient and straightforward to adjust. Through our testing on five benchmark datasets and two proprietary datasets, we observed notable reductions in the generation of unsafe content. Moreover, following the implementation of safety measures, there was a significant improvement in the production of safe content. We detail our fine-tuning processes and how we benchmark safety for SR$_{\text{LLM}}$ with the community engagement and promote the responsible advancement of LLMs. All the data and code are available anonymous at https://github.com/shainarazavi/Safe-Responsible-LLM .

Equity in Healthcare: Analyzing Disparities in Machine Learning Predictions of Diabetic Patient Readmissions

This study investigates how machine learning (ML) models can predict hospital readmissions for diabetic patients fairly and accurately across different demographics (age, gender, race). We compared models like Deep Learning, Generalized Linear Models, Gradient Boosting Machines (GBM), and Naive Bayes. GBM stood out with an F1-score of 84.3% and accuracy of 82.2%, accurately predicting readmissions across demographics. A fairness analysis was conducted across all the models. GBM minimized disparities in predictions, achieving balanced results across genders and races. It showed low False Discovery Rates (FDR) (6-7%) and False Positive Rates (FPR) (5%) for both genders. Additionally, FDRs remained low for racial groups, such as African Americans (8%) and Asians (7%). Similarly, FPRs were consistent across age groups (4%) for both patients under 40 and those above 40, indicating its precision and ability to reduce bias. These findings emphasize the importance of choosing ML models carefully to ensure both accuracy and fairness for all patients. By showcasing effectiveness of various models with fairness metrics, this study promotes personalized medicine and the need for fair ML algorithms in healthcare. This can ultimately reduce disparities and improve outcomes for diabetic patients of all backgrounds.

FakeWatch: A Framework for Detecting Fake News to Ensure Credible Elections

In today's technologically driven world, the rapid spread of fake news, particularly during critical events like elections, poses a growing threat to the integrity of information. To tackle this challenge head-on, we introduce FakeWatch, a comprehensive framework carefully designed to detect fake news. Leveraging a newly curated dataset of North American election-related news articles, we construct robust classification models. Our framework integrates a model hub comprising of both traditional machine learning (ML) techniques and cutting-edge Language Models (LMs) to discern fake news effectively. Our overarching objective is to provide the research community with adaptable and precise classification models adept at identifying the ever-evolving landscape of misinformation. Quantitative evaluations of fake news classifiers on our dataset reveal that, while state-of-the-art LMs exhibit a slight edge over traditional ML models, classical models remain competitive due to their balance of accuracy and computational efficiency. Additionally, qualitative analyses shed light on patterns within fake news articles. This research lays the groundwork for future endeavors aimed at combating misinformation, particularly concerning electoral processes. We provide our labeled data and model publicly for use and reproducibility.

FAIR Enough: How Can We Develop and Assess a FAIR-Compliant Dataset for Large Language Models' Training?

The rapid evolution of Large Language Models (LLMs) underscores the critical importance of ethical considerations and data integrity in AI development, emphasizing the role of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles. While these principles have long been a cornerstone of ethical data stewardship, their application in LLM training data is less prevalent, an issue our research aims to address. Our study begins with a review of existing literature, highlighting the significance of FAIR principles in data management for model training. Building on this foundation, we introduce a novel framework that incorporates FAIR principles into the LLM training process. A key aspect of this approach is a comprehensive checklist, designed to assist researchers and developers in consistently applying FAIR data principles throughout the model development lifecycle. The practicality and effectiveness of our framework are demonstrated through a case study that involves creating a FAIR-compliant dataset to detect and reduce biases. This case study not only validates the usefulness of our framework but also establishes new benchmarks for more equitable, transparent, and ethical practices in LLM training. We offer this framework to the community as a means to promote technologically advanced, ethically sound, and socially responsible AI models.

Progress in Privacy Protection: A Review of Privacy Preserving Techniques in Recommender Systems, Edge Computing, and Cloud Computing

As digital technology evolves, the increasing use of connected devices brings both challenges and opportunities in the areas of mobile crowdsourcing, edge computing, and recommender systems. This survey focuses on these dynamic fields, emphasizing the critical need for privacy protection in our increasingly data-oriented world. It explores the latest trends in these interconnected areas, with a special emphasis on privacy and data security. Our method involves an in-depth analysis of various academic works, which helps us to gain a comprehensive understanding of these sectors and their shifting focus towards privacy concerns. We present new insights and marks a significant advancement in addressing privacy issues within these technologies. The survey is a valuable resource for researchers, industry practitioners, and policy makers, offering an extensive overview of these fields and their related privacy challenges, catering to a wide audience in the modern digital era.

Reliability Analysis of Psychological Concept Extraction and Classification in User-penned Text

The social NLP research community witness a recent surge in the computational advancements of mental health analysis to build responsible AI models for a complex interplay between language use and self-perception. Such responsible AI models aid in quantifying the psychological concepts from user-penned texts on social media. On thinking beyond the low-level (classification) task, we advance the existing binary classification dataset, towards a higher-level task of reliability analysis through the lens of explanations, posing it as one of the safety measures. We annotate the LoST dataset to capture nuanced textual cues that suggest the presence of low self-esteem in the posts of Reddit users. We further state that the NLP models developed for determining the presence of low self-esteem, focus more on three types of textual cues: (i) Trigger: words that triggers mental disturbance, (ii) LoST indicators: text indicators emphasizing low self-esteem, and (iii) Consequences: words describing the consequences of mental disturbance. We implement existing classifiers to examine the attention mechanism in pre-trained language models (PLMs) for a domain-specific psychology-grounded task. Our findings suggest the need of shifting the focus of PLMs from Trigger and Consequences to a more comprehensive explanation, emphasizing LoST indicators while determining low self-esteem in Reddit posts.

Navigating News Narratives: A Media Bias Analysis Dataset

The proliferation of biased news narratives across various media platforms has become a prominent challenge, influencing public opinion on critical topics like politics, health, and climate change. This paper introduces the "Navigating News Narratives: A Media Bias Analysis Dataset", a comprehensive dataset to address the urgent need for tools to detect and analyze media bias. This dataset encompasses a broad spectrum of biases, making it a unique and valuable asset in the field of media studies and artificial intelligence. The dataset is available at https://huggingface.co/datasets/newsmediabias/news-bias-full-data.

Analyzing the Influence of Fake News in the 2024 Elections: A Comprehensive Dataset

This work introduces a dataset focused on fake news in US political speeches, specifically examining racial slurs and biases. By scraping and annotating 40,000 news articles, using advanced NLP tools and human verification, we provide a nuanced understanding of misinformation in political discourse. The dataset, designed for machine learning and bias analysis, is a critical resource for researchers, policymakers, and educators. It facilitates the development of strategies against misinformation and enhances media literacy, marking a significant contribution to the study of fake news and political communication. Our dataset, focusing on the analysis of fake news in the context of the 2024 elections, is publicly accessible for community to work on fake news identification. Our dataset, focusing on the analysis of fake news in the context of the 2024 elections, is publicly accessible.

FakeWatch ElectionShield: A Benchmarking Framework to Detect Fake News for Credible US Elections

In today's technologically driven world, the spread of fake news, particularly during crucial events such as elections, presents an increasing challenge to the integrity of information. To address this challenge, we introduce FakeWatch ElectionShield, an innovative framework carefully designed to detect fake news. We have created a novel dataset of North American election-related news articles through a blend of advanced language models (LMs) and thorough human verification, for precision and relevance. We propose a model hub of LMs for identifying fake news. Our goal is to provide the research community with adaptable and accurate classification models in recognizing the dynamic nature of misinformation. Extensive evaluation of fake news classifiers on our dataset and a benchmark dataset shows our that while state-of-the-art LMs slightly outperform the traditional ML models, classical models are still competitive with their balance of accuracy, explainability, and computational efficiency. This research sets the foundation for future studies to address misinformation related to elections.