Post
1541
What’s in a name? More than you might think, especially for AI.
Whenever I introduce myself, people often start speaking French to me, even though my French is très basic. It turns out that AI systems do something similar:
Large language models infer cultural identity from names, shaping their responses based on presumed backgrounds. But is this helpful personalization or a reinforcement of stereotypes?
In our latest paper, we explored this question by testing DeepSeek, Llama, Aya, Mistral-Nemo, and GPT-4o-mini on how they associate names with cultural identities. We analysed 900 names from 30 cultures and found strong assumptions baked into AI responses: some cultures were overrepresented, while others barely registered.
For example, a name like "Jun" often triggered Japan-related responses, while "Carlos" was linked primarily to Mexico, even though these names exist in multiple countries. Meanwhile, names from places like Ireland led to more generic answers, suggesting weaker associations in the training data.
This has real implications for AI fairness: How should AI systems personalize without stereotyping? Should they adapt at all based on a name?
Work with some of my favourite researchers: @sidicity Arnav Arora and @IAugenstein
Read the full paper here: Presumed Cultural Identity: How Names Shape LLM Responses (2502.11995)
Whenever I introduce myself, people often start speaking French to me, even though my French is très basic. It turns out that AI systems do something similar:
Large language models infer cultural identity from names, shaping their responses based on presumed backgrounds. But is this helpful personalization or a reinforcement of stereotypes?
In our latest paper, we explored this question by testing DeepSeek, Llama, Aya, Mistral-Nemo, and GPT-4o-mini on how they associate names with cultural identities. We analysed 900 names from 30 cultures and found strong assumptions baked into AI responses: some cultures were overrepresented, while others barely registered.
For example, a name like "Jun" often triggered Japan-related responses, while "Carlos" was linked primarily to Mexico, even though these names exist in multiple countries. Meanwhile, names from places like Ireland led to more generic answers, suggesting weaker associations in the training data.
This has real implications for AI fairness: How should AI systems personalize without stereotyping? Should they adapt at all based on a name?
Work with some of my favourite researchers: @sidicity Arnav Arora and @IAugenstein
Read the full paper here: Presumed Cultural Identity: How Names Shape LLM Responses (2502.11995)
