Prompt design is essential not only to get the right responses from AI models, but also to mitigate biases and face ethics and its implications. A bad planned prompt can perpetuate stereotypes and prejudices and cause damages, while a well planned prompt can promote more balanced and impartial responses.
How Prompts can influence AI biases and ethics
AI models learn from the data with which they are trained, that often include intrinsic biases. A prompt, if not well formulated, can enhance those biases. For example, a prompt such as “Describe a typical developer” can lead to stereotypical answers if AI learned from data representing, in a typified manner, a particular demographic group. AI could give you a response reinforcing stereotypes and ignoring diversity
Biases can emerge also when prompt reflects cultural or personal unconscious prejudices of those who write them. “What are the characteristics of a strong leader?” can elicitate answers that enhance some qualities that are considered positive only in some cultures and not in others, reinforcing a limited and potentially discriminatory point of view.
How to plan ethics and natural prompts without biases
to plan prompts that are respectful in terms of ethics and biases you should use an intentional approach. Here are some examples.
- awareness of biases: keep in mind that training data could include systematic errors, analyze prompts to identify prejudices and reformulate them in a more inclusive manner. For example, instead of “Describe a nurse” write “Describe a person working as a nurse, avoiding implying a specific gender”
- neutrality of language: use a neutral and inclusive language, avoiding terms with a discriminatory connotation. Instead of “What would a successful business man do?” try using “What would a successful business-person do?”
- Diversity in prompts: try incorporating various perspectives into the prompts, for examples by asking AI to consider various viewpoints to better balance the answers. For example, you can ask “Describe the different leadership qualities across different cultures” to promote a more global and less biased vision.
- Test and revision: implement a testing process, analyzing generated answers and looking for bias clues. It can be useful to involve a diverse group of revisors to identify prejudices that could have gone unnoticed to the prompts’ creator.
Ethics and biases in prompt
Ethical implications are significant. Biased prompts can perpetuate disparities and stereotypes, negatively influencing AI based decisions in various sectors such as employment, education and justice. For example a personnel selection process use a biased AI that favors a particular demographic group, work opportunities can become unjustly distributed.
Planning ethic prompt is, indeed, a key responsibility to guarantee that AI models, that we will use increasingly more in all sectors, are fair and impartial. Continuous commitment is necessary to ensure that AI presents as few ethical problems as possible and serves humanity fairly.