"Kelly is a Warm Person, Joseph is a Role Model": Gender Biases in LLM-Generated Reference Letters

Understand

Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently emerged as an effective tool to assist individuals in writing various types of content, including professional documents such as recommendation letters.

• Though bringing convenience, this application also introduces unprecedented fairness concerns.
• Model-generated reference letters might be directly used by users in professional scenarios.
• If underlying biases exist in these model-constructed letters, using them without scrutinization could lead to direct societal harms, such as sabotaging application success rates for female applicants.