# Global-Liar: Factuality of LLMs over Time and Geographic Regions

Shujaat Mirza  New York University  Bruno Coelho  New York University  Yuyuan
Cui  New York University  Christina Pöpper  New York University Abu Dhabi
Damon McCoy  New York University

###### Abstract

The increasing reliance on AI-driven solutions, particularly Large Language
Models (LLMs) like the GPT series, for information retrieval highlights the
critical need for their factuality and fairness, especially amidst the rampant
spread of misinformation and disinformation online. Our study evaluates the
factual accuracy, stability, and biases in widely adopted GPT models,
including GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, contributing to reliability and integrity of AI-
mediated information dissemination.

We introduce ’Global-Liar,’ a dataset uniquely balanced in terms of geographic
and temporal representation, facilitating a more nuanced evaluation of LLM
biases. Our analysis reveals that newer iterations of GPT models do not always
equate to improved performance. Notably, the GPT-4 version from March
demonstrates higher factual accuracy than its subsequent June release.
Furthermore, a concerning bias is observed, privileging statements from the
Global North over the Global South, thus potentially exacerbating existing
informational inequities. Regions such as Africa and the Middle East are at a
disadvantage, with much lower factual accuracy. The performance fluctuations
over time suggest that model updates may not consistently benefit all regions
equally.

Our study also offers insights into the impact of various LLM configuration
settings, such as binary decision forcing, model re-runs and temperature, on
model’s factuality. Models constrained to binary (true/false) choices exhibit
reduced factuality compared to those allowing an ’unclear’ option. Single
inference at a low temperature setting matches the reliability of majority
voting across various configurations. The insights gained highlight the need
for culturally diverse and geographically inclusive model training and
evaluation. This approach is crucial in advancing towards global fairness in
computational systems, ensuring that AI’s technological benefits are equitably
distributed worldwide.

##  1 Introduction

The digital age has amplified our access to information, but in the same
stride, it has magnified the challenge of mis-/disinformation Caramancion
(2020). The resulting wave of misleading content risks eroding the very
foundations of our informed societies. Now, more than ever, as societies
navigate through an intricate web of data-driven decisions, the integrity and
trustworthiness of our information sources are under scrutiny Shu et al.
(2020); Grimes (2021); Bovet and Makse (2019).

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the GPT series have experienced
widespread adoption due to their advanced capabilities in processing complex
information Paul et al. (2023). Recognizing their potential impact, there has
been an increasing focus on aligning these models with facts through
Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) to avoid harmful content
generations Ouyang et al. (2022). As users increasingly place trust in LLMs
with the responsibility of discerning fact from fiction Lee et al. (2021); Guo
et al. (2022); Wahle et al. (2022); Aggarwal et al. (2020); Pelrine et al.
(2021), ensuring their factuality and fairness becomes a central concern.

The impact of mis-/disinformation varies globally, influenced by factors like
regional digital literacy and the strength of local fact-checking ecosystems
Mirza et al. (2023). Regions with lower digital literacy are often more
susceptible to misinformation, lacking robust mechanisms to critically assess
and verify digital content. This susceptibility is not just a matter of the
technical capabilities of disinformation campaigns, but also the vulnerability
of the targeted population Mirza et al. (2023). Such disparities highlight the
need for examining the performance of LLMs like the GPT series across
different regions. If these models are not finely attuned to regional
variations, they risk exacerbating existing informational inequities. Our
study, therefore, delves into the geographic factuality variations of LLMs,
addressing a crucial aspect of how these technologies can either mitigate or
amplify challenges in diverse information ecosystems.

In this study, we utilize a comprehensive evaluation framework to assess how
accurate the models are in aligning with the true facts (“factuality”) in
fact-checking tasks. Primarily, we focus our attention on two pivotal models,
GPT-3.5 Brown et al. (2020) and GPT-4 Bubeck et al. (2023). ChatGPT, the web
interface chatbot serving GPT models, reached 100 million users just two
months after launching Milmo (2023). Despite its popularity, inconsistencies
of factuality in its responses, as exemplified in Figure 12 in Appendix G,
have provided motivation for our research study. We specifically look at GPT
in the zero-shot classification setting (and not as a search-retrieval method
that can use online sources to detect factualness, e.g., Microsoft Bing Mehdi
(2023)). We specifically examine a number of model configurations for LLM-
based fact-checking tasks, including analyzing the impact of forcing binary
decisions (“true” or “false”) on LLMs, proper temperature setting, as well as
the model behavior in multiple runs with a given query. We compared different
versions of the GPT model series to evaluate performance across model updates.
Furthermore, we compared model performance over inputs from different
geographic regions and time. For this purpose, we curated a balanced dataset
(n = 600), evenly distributed in terms of regions and labels and covering news
and statements from before and after the model training cutoff date.

Our findings present a nuanced picture. Notably, while GPT-4 exhibits superior
performance over its predecessor, GPT-3.5, its versions show inconsistent
outcomes. The GPT-4 March release was notably more factually accurate compared
to its subsequent June iteration. Understandably, there was a marked decline
in model accuracies for information beyond their training span. We also
observe notable performance disparities in LLMs based on geographic origin,
uncovering a concerning bias that privileges statements from the Global North
(e.g. North America) over those from the Global South (e.g. Africa). Such
biases in computational systems can have far-reaching implications,
potentially exacerbating existing inequities and misinforming certain
populations. This research is situated within a global context, recognizing
that the impacts of computational systems are not confined by geographical
boundaries.

Our major contributions include:

  1. 1.

We introduce Global-Liar, a geographically and temporally balanced dataset,
paving the way for future nuanced evaluations of LLMs. This dataset is a step
towards mitigating geographic biases and promoting global inclusivity in
computational systems. We will make our curated dataset publicly available.

  2. 2.

By analyzing the impact of a number of configuration settings for LLM-driven
fact-checking, such as forcing binary decisions, temperature configuration,
and model reruns, our study sheds light on the nuanced capabilities and
limitations of LLMs in handling complex information, providing guidance on
efficient and scalable applications in real-world settings.

  3. 3.

This study contributes a seminal analysis of LLM factuality performance
disparities across global regions, with a specific emphasis on contrasting
outcomes between the Global North and the Global South. By quantitatively
uncovering these discrepancies, our research highlights the need for
culturally aware and geographically diverse model training and evaluation,
vital for achieving equitable computational systems worldwide. This
contribution is pivotal in guiding future LLM advancements towards global
fairness, ensuring equitable technological benefits across diverse
international contexts.

##  2 Methods

In this section, we outline our approach to evaluating OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and
GPT-4 models in fact-checking tasks. We explain the choice of models under
scrutiny (Section 2.1), our globally diverse dataset assembled for evaluation
(Section 2.2), prompt design and model configurations facilitating model
interaction (Section 2.3), and the metrics employed for a quantitative
assessment (Section 2.4). This overview sets the stage for the following
analysis of the models’ fact-checking capabilities.

###  2.1 Models

This study endeavors to systematically evaluate the fact-checking performance
of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models, which constitute the core of OpenAI’s ChatGPT
service. Due to ChatGPT’s widespread adoption among individual users and
businesses, understanding the performance drift of these models between
different versions is of timely importance.

####  2.1.1 GPT-3.5-turbo Series

GPT-3.5-turbo stands as the most cost-effective model within the GPT series,
exhibiting proficient performance in traditional completion tasks. At the time
of writing, two versions of GPT-3.5-turbo are available through the OpenAI
API, one from March 2023 (GPT-3.5-turbo-0301, shortened to gpt-3.5t-03 in
plots) and the other from June 2023 (GPT-3.5-turbo-0613, shortened to
gpt-3.5t-06). These versions show the models’ state at these specific times
and reflect any updates or improvements made by OpenAI. Additionally,
GPT-3.5-turbo-16K is also accessible which has the same capabilities as the
standard GPT-3.5-turbo model but with 4 times the context. The June snapshot
of this model, GPT-3.5-turbo-16K-0601 (shortened to gpt-3.5t-16k-06), is also
included in this evaluation.

####  2.1.2 GPT-4 Series

In March 2023, OpenAI introduced GPT-4, a successor to GPT-3.5. The increased
model complexity of GPT-4 compared with previous versions is believed to bring
significant performance improvement. In this study, we will explore this claim
in the context of fact-checking. At the time of writing, two principal
versions of GPT-4 are available through the OpenAI API, one snapshot taken in
March 2023 (GPT-4-0314, shortened to gpt-4-03), and the other in June 2023
(GPT-4-0613, shortened to gpt-4-06), denoting the model’s evolutionary state
at these respective time points.

All API queries in this study were executed within the timeframe spanning from
July 2023 to October 2023. The financial costs incurred for running queries on
GPT-4 amounted to $435, which is approximately 13 times higher than the cost
incurred from querying the GPT-3 model ($33) for a similar amount of requests.

###  2.2 Dataset Curation

We curated a dataset of both true and false statements published before and
after the OpenAI API training cutoff date for the models in September 2021.
This unique dataset called Global-Liar addresses two concerns: (1) the
potential bias from using datasets possibly employed in model fine-tuning, and
(2) the Western-centric focus of existing datasets. Our dataset aims for a
fair assessment of the models’ fact-checking performance and broadens the
evaluation scope to include six global regions: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe,
Latin America, North America, and the Middle East, with 100 statements from
each region. In our analysis, we use _Global South_ to mean the Africa, Latin
America, and the Middle East regions and _Global North_ to mean North America,
Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions, although we note that the latter also
includes a number of countries from both regions.

To achieve a balanced analysis, our dataset maintains an equal number of true
and false statements. False statements were sourced from AFP
FactCheck111https://factcheck.afp.com, selecting statements that could be
analyzed without the need for additional context, such as images or videos. In
the Latin America region, nearly half of the examples were translated from
Portuguese222https://checamos.afp.com/ and Spanish333https://factual.afp.com/
by a fluent speaker due to a scarcity of valid statements in English.

True statements were derived from reputable news outlets in the respective
regions, specifically from newspapers ranking high on the International Media
and Newspapers list4444imn is an international directory for newspapers,
accessible at https://www.4imn.com/about/. These statements, extracted from
high-quality sources, served as the ground truth for true statements.

We provide data spanning both before and after the model’s training cutoff
date in September 2021. Ensuring equilibrium with this pivotal date, our
dataset features 300 statements from each side of the timeline. Additionally,
both data subsets are evenly distributed in terms of regions and labels.

We plan to make our dataset publicly available alongside this paper to aid the
community in conducting evaluations on a dataset balanced for regions, labels,
and time frames.

###  2.3 Prompt Design and Model Configurations

Prompts serve as the interface through which the models receive input and,
consequently, the clarity, neutrality, and specificity of prompts can
significantly impact the models’ output. In our study, we carefully crafted
prompts to be clear, unbiased, and relevant to fact-checking. Each prompt
aimed to elicit factual responses from the models without leading them toward
any particular answer.

####  2.3.1 Verdict Categories

With a given input statement, a natural output required from the model for
fact-checking is to ask it to produce a “true” or “false” label. In our
following evaluation, however, in addition to the “true” and “false” labels,
our prompt allows the language model to output an “unclear” verdict for
instances where it lacks confidence in leaning towards either side. Listing
LABEL:listing:prompt provides a succinct version of the prompt used in our
main experiment. This choice is based on our experiment (Section 3.2.5) which
shows that allowing the “unclear” verdict makes the models perform better.

####  2.3.2 Prompt Rerun

In order to evaluate the stability of model response, for each statement we
prompt the model five times and record all responses for subsequent analysis.
When evaluating the factuality of the model, we use the mode response of each
statement as the consensus verdict. Our aim is to mitigate the potential
inconsistencies in individual runs and derive a more stable and reliable
prediction.

####  2.3.3 Temperature Setting

Temperature is a parameter that controls the randomness of response from the
GPT models. We set the temperature to zero for subsequent analysis to ensure
models perform most stably. This choice is supported by our analysis comparing
model performance over different temperature values - lower temperature value
understandably makes the model more stable and precise (Appendix B).

####  2.3.4 Post-Processing

Due to models’ tendencies to deviate from instructions and generate non-
conforming responses, they were instructed to provide only a verdict,
foregoing any detailed rationales for their decision. Nonetheless, post-
processing was requisite in a few instances to ensure precise response
categorization. Initially, special characters are removed and text is
converted to lowercase for uniformity. Known prefixes or suffixes are then
removed from labels. A dictionary of corrections is utilized to map various
labels to accepted terms: “false”, “true”, or “unclear”. If a label does not
match predefined corrections, fuzzy matching is employed to find the closest
match among the accepted labels, enhancing the accuracy and consistency of
response categorization for precise analysis.

Listing 1: Prompt used for querying models.

⬇

Role: I need you to assume the role of a professional fact checker with an
experience of 10+ years. You will fact-check a statement.

Task: For given statement, delimited by triple backticks, rate it for
truthfulness.

Response Format: ‘false’, ‘true’, or ‘unclear’ (no context or explanations).

Now, let’s get to task. Here is the statement: {text}

###  2.4 Metrics

In our evaluation framework, we focus on two dimensions: _stability_ and
_factuality_. Stability assesses the model’s consistency across the five rerun
iterations, while factuality gauges its alignment with the ground truth. These
dimensions, explored through specific metrics, provide a nuanced understanding
of the model’s performance in fact-checking scenarios.

####  2.4.1 Stability

Consistency in verdicts across multiple evaluations enhances the reliability
of LLMs, which in turn, fosters user trust — a critical aspect for the
practical deployment of automated fact-checking systems. Our ad-hoc
experimentation with the ChatGPT web interface (cf. Figure 12 in Appendix G)
suggests that one-shot metrics may fall short in providing a comprehensive
evaluation. A model that exhibits low stability might give inconsistent
verdicts, undermining its reliability in discerning factual accuracy. To
rigorously assess stability in this context, we employ the Mode Frequency
metric.

Mode Frequency: Given a statement and its set of predictions from multiple
runs of the LLM, the mode frequency quantifies the most commonly occurring
verdict. For a given statement $s$:

$\text{MF}=\frac{\text{\\# occurrences of mode verdict}}{\text{\\# total
predictions}}$ (1)

Subsequently, to obtain a holistic view of the model’s behavior, the mode
frequencies of individual statements can be aggregated to provide an average
mode frequency for the entire LLM model:

$\text{Average MF}=\frac{\sum_{s\in S}\text{Mode Frequency}}{|S|},$ (2)

where $S$ represents the set of all evaluated statements. This average mode
frequency offers insights into the typical consensus level the LLM model
exhibits across its predictions. A higher value suggests that, on average, the
model tends to converge more frequently on a particular verdict for each
statement, indicating a stronger predictive consistency.

Label Switching: In the context of fact-checking with language models,
understanding how temperature modulation affects verdicts is crucial. To this
end, we quantify the instances where the model’s verdict alternates between
temperature transitions. Frequent label switching highlights the model’s
sensitivity to temperature alterations, suggesting potential verdict
variability.

####  2.4.2 Factuality

The accuracy with which a model can determine the factuality of a statement is
crucial to its utility in real-world applications. For each statement, the LLM
provides a set of verdicts across five runs. We use the “mode" verdict (the
most frequent prediction among these runs) as the model’s output verdict. In
cases of tied verdict frequencies, we default to the verdict given by the
model in its first run. To rigorously evaluate the capability of LLMs in fact-
checking, we adopt the following classical metrics:

Accuracy computes the proportion of statements for which the model’s verdict
aligns with the ground truth.

Precision evaluates the fraction of statements classified as true that are
indeed factual. It gives insight into the reliability of a model’s positive
verdicts.

Recall determines the proportion of factual statements that the model
correctly identifies. It indicates the model’s coverage of true statements.

F1 Score provides a balanced measure of a model’s precision and recall
capabilities.

Certainty Rate: The Certainty Rate metric is designed to penalize instances
when the model neither confidently selects a “true” nor “false” verdict in a
3/5 majority across model runs. Specifically, this lack of convergence
signifies the model’s indecisiveness or inability to determine the factuality
of a statement. Two primary scenarios contribute to this uncertainty:

  1. 1.

The model outputs an “unclear” verdict, underscoring its hesitancy in
factuality judgment.

  2. 2.

The model’s verdicts are split, failing to reach a 3/5 majority for either
“true”, “false”, or “unclear”.

The Certainty Rate is calculated as the proportion of statements for which the
model outputs a “clear” mode verdict over the total number of statements
evaluated:

$\mathit{UR}_{\text{total}}=\frac{1}{|S|}\sum_{s\in
S}\left\\{\begin{array}[]{ll}0&\text{if }T_{i}<3\text{ and }F_{i}<3\\\
1&\text{otherwise}\end{array}\right.$ (3)

where $T_{i}$ and $F_{i}$ represent the number of times the model selects a
“true” and “false” verdict, respectively, for the $i^{th}$ statement.

A lower Certainty Rate may reflect a model’s cautiousness or lack of
information to make a definite judgment, while a higher rate may indicate a
model’s readiness to commit to a verdict, whether “true” or “false”. This
metric provides insight into the model’s ability to handle ambiguous or
insufficient information and its readiness to admit uncertainty, which is
crucial for applications where acknowledging the lack of clarity is as
important as providing accurate verdicts.

##  3 Model Stability and Factuality Results

In this section, we consider model consistency and factuality measured across
a set of metrics to investigate the performance of GPT models in the fact-
checking scenario. Figure 1 provides an overview of the performance of each of
the GPT models across different stability and factuality metrics. Overall we
hope our findings will be instrumental in informing when and how to use a
large language model to evaluate veracity in the context of misinformation.

Figure 1: Performance metrics across different models for three main
temperature values. Across almost all metrics, GPT-4 March consistently
outperforms other models. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced
statements originating before the training cutoff date of Sep 2021. Results
for other temperatures are provided in the Appendix B (Figure 3).

###  3.1 Stability

Stability refers to how consistently the LLMs give the same verdicts when
evaluating the same statement (prompt) multiple times. This form of stability
is one important component for trusting the model’s responses in fact-checking
related tasks. In this part of our analysis, we use Mode Frequency and Label
Switching to assess stability.

####  3.1.1 Mode Frequency

With a temperature value of zero, all GPT model versions maintain a high level
of mode frequency (Figure 1), suggesting consistent behavior. We include in
Appendix B (Figure 7(a)) an analysis of model consistency decay with
increasing temperature. While all models show some decline in mode frequency,
the rate and extent of this decline vary (cf. Figure 7(a)). Both GPT-4 models
(March and June versions) maintain a relatively stable mode frequency across
the observed range. They show the highest results in terms of high mode
frequency and exhibit minimal fluctuation, suggesting consistent behavior.
Notably, the June snapshots of both GPT-3.5-turbo and GPT-3.5-turbo-16K
demonstrate the most pronounced decline in mode frequency across the observed
temperature range. Interestingly, the GPT-3.5 March version is comparable in
stability to its GPT-4 counterpart.

####  3.1.2 Label Switching

To further understand the variability in prediction behaviors among different
GPT models, we evaluate switching counts in response to temperature changes in
Figure 7(b) in Appendix B. Switching counts refer to the number of statements
for which a model alters its output prediction when moving from one
temperature value to another. Most models exhibit an increase in switching
counts as temperature transitions increase, suggesting that as temperature
rises, models tend to switch their predictions more frequently. The June
versions of GPT-3.5 exhibit heightened sensitivity, while others maintain a
more steady output.

_Summary:_ Based on the analyses in Figures 1 and 7, with temperature value of
zero, all GPT models are able to achieve consistency across multiple runs for
a given statement.

###  3.2 Factuality

How well an LLM can tell if a statement is true or not is critical for its
real-world deployment. This part of the analysis reports insights on the
models’ ability to discern the veracity of statements. We analyze their
strengths and limitations through multiple viewpoints: First, we look at
Certainty Rate to understand when the model does not predict a “true” or
“false” majority, counting “unclear” as wrong predictions. We next dive into
other metrics such as Accuracy, Precision, and Recall. Lastly, we evaluate
different settings such as Singular versus Majority Rule Inference and
Uncertainty versus Factual Determination.

Table 1: Model Analysis Summary. The columns “Unclear True” and “Unclear False” denote instances where “true” and “false” statements, respectively, have been classified as “unclear” by the models. The temperature setting is 0. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating prior to the training cutoff date of Sep 2021. Model Name | Unclear | False
---|---|---
True | False | Total | Positive | Negative
GPT-3.5 March | 9 | 57 | 66 | 32 | 0
GPT-3.5 June | 15 | 45 | 60 | 39 | 1
GPT-4 March | 9 | 19 | 28 | 27 | 0
GPT-4 June | 42 | 12 | 54 | 21 | 1
GPT-3.5-16K June | 14 | 46 | 60 | 37 | 3

####  3.2.1 Certainty Rate

The Certainty Rate represents the proportion of statements for which the model
achieved a 3/5 majority decision for either “true” or “false” verdicts (cf.
Table 1). A lower certainty rate suggests that a model frequently opts for a
contradictory or “unclear” classification. The June snapshot of GPT-4 has a
pronounced count of true statements marked as “unclear” (42), indicating that
this model tends to be more conservative or cautious in its predictions,
potentially to avoid false positives. Indeed, this model has the least number
(21) of false positives. The GPT-3.5 March version marks a notably high 57
false statements as “unclear”, suggesting it often opts for a non-committal
stance even when statements are false. On the other end, the GPT-4 March and
June versions have the lowest counts, 19 and 12 respectively. These models are
less hesitant in making definitive judgments on false statements.

Summing the “Unclear True” and “Unclear False” values provides a holistic view
of each model’s overall uncertainty. From this perspective, the GPT-3.5 March
version exhibits the highest combined uncertainty with a total of 66 unclear
verdicts, while the GPT-4 March displays the least with a combined count of
28. Additional details, including particular examples of model-marked
uncertain statements, are provided in Appendix E.

####  3.2.2 Accuracy

Figure 1 provides insights into the effectiveness of various GPT models in
fact-checking tasks. The GPT-4 March model achieves the best accuracy
($\sim$80%) irrespective of temperature fluctuations. It is followed by GPT-4
June ($\sim$74%) and GPT-3.5 March ($\sim$68%) that maintain stable accuracy
across temperatures, with only slight fluctuations. In contrast, the GPT-3.5
June models exhibit a more pronounced decrease as temperature rises. Figure 4
in Appendix B provides insights into the effectiveness of various GPT models
in fact-checking tasks across different temperature settings.

False positives refer to situations where incorrect statements are mistakenly
identified as true by the model, while false negatives denote instances where
accurate statements are wrongly flagged as false. The findings in Table 1
represent a significant concern: the models demonstrate a pronounced tendency
to misclassify false facts as true, indicating a bias in their verdicts. Such
a predisposition towards false positives is alarming from a fact-checking
standpoint, as it might propagate misinformation. Appendix F (Table 9) shows
the nine false positives statements mislabeled by all five models.
Intriguingly, there is a stark rarity of false negatives, meaning that the
models infrequently label genuine truths as false. This can likely be
attributed to our data collection methodology. By sourcing true statements
from reputable, high-impact newspapers, it is plausible that many of these
facts were already integrated into the model’s training data, especially if
they were published before the cutoff date.

####  3.2.3 Precision, Recall

The March GPT-4 model performs best across both metrics — precision and recall
(cf. Figure 1). In terms of precision, the June GPT-4 model performs visibly
worse, meaning newer iterations of the model do not necessarily improve the
factuality of the models. When considering recall, while both GPT-4 variants
outperform their counterparts, a nuanced difference emerges between them.
Specifically, the March iteration registers a superior recall rate. The
relatively low recall of the GPT-4 June version is attributed to its cautious
approach to opt for “unclear” verdicts for statements that are in fact “true”
(cf. column “Unclear True” in Table 1). Thus, the model is missing a
significant number of true statements.

For the analysis in Figure 1 (and Figure 5 in Appendix B), we treat uncertain
statements as incorrect (i.e., the majority “unclear” label assigned by an LLM
differs from ground truth). Additionally, for an evaluation of models on
statements with definitive majority verdicts (“true” or “false”), we report
the analysis in detail in Figure 6 in Appendix B.

Table 2: F1 scores comparing model performance under different inference rules and prompt instruction settings. The temperature setting is 0. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating before the training cutoff date of Sep 2021. Model Name | Inference Rule | Prompt Instruction
---|---|---
Majority Vote | First Prediction | Two-Label | Three-Label
GPT-3.5 March | 48.38% | 48.38% | 59.26% | 89.81%
GPT-3.5 June | 47.93% | 47.50% | 53.66% | 87.01%
GPT-4 March | 56.86% | 56.66% | 77.78% | 91.26%
GPT-4 June | 54.76% | 55.29% | 72.46% | 90.68%
GPT-3.5-16K June | 48.01% | 47.59% | - | -

####  3.2.4 Inference Rule: Singular Prediction versus Majority Vote

To understand if multiple runs of the model improve the factuality of its
verdicts, we evaluate the models using majority voting versus a one-shot
prediction setting. For majority rule inference, we only consider a prediction
correct if it has a majority of at least three votes across the five
repetitions. Querying the model multiple times has barely any effect on
factuality (cf. columns under "Inference Rule" in Table 2).

Figure 8 in Appendix B further demonstrates that querying the model multiple
times does not improve factuality at low temperatures in the range of
$0.0-1.0$. At higher temperatures, the Majority Voting based on five
predictions generally yields better F1 scores in comparison to querying the
model once (First Prediction) across different GPT versions and temperature
settings. There is a marked drop in factuality for single predictions when
temperature transitions from $1.5$ to $2.0$. The only exception is GPT-4 June
snapshot, where both First Prediction and Majority Vote produce nearly
equivalent results, even at higher temperatures, such as $2.0$.

In summary, singular inference is as factual as majority rule inference for
lower temperature settings. The practice of querying the model multiple times
and adopting a majority voting strategy enhances the factuality of the
outcomes only at high temperatures.

####  3.2.5 Prompt Instruction: Uncertainty vs. Forced Factual Determination –
A Three- vs. Two-Label Comparison

To analyze the effect of prompting the model with the option of an “unclear”
label, we repeat our experiment while forcing it to make a factual
determination. We change the response format options to “true” or “false” as
opposed to three options (“true”, “false” or “unclear”). This “binary” group
of models correctly predicts a majority of “true" or “false" for 99.4% of all
statements, other than 39 occurrences of “NA” which we consider as being a
wrong label when evaluating performance. We exclude the gpt-3.5t-16k-06
version due to time constraints.

We consider a subset of the data comprised of statements where the majority
predicted label is either “true” or “false”, calculated independently for each
of our original models and temperatures. We call this the “Baseline Set" and
its complement is the “Unclear Set". Table 2 shows the difference in average
F1 score between the binary models on the Unclear Set and the original models
on the Baseline Set. We include accuracy, precision, and recall in Appendix D
(Figure 11). The binary prompt instruction models consistently underperform
our baseline, especially for the GPT-3.5 family which averages a 32% lower F1
score.

Our results indicate that forcing the model to make a decision has no
performance gains and practitioners should instead treat unclear labels as a
class of its own.

_Summary:_ Our results show that the GPT models change their behavior over
model versions in surprising ways. Specifically, when comparing the March and
June versions, GPT-4 exhibits a drop in performance due to its tendency to
label a large number of positive examples as unclear. While these results
indicate that it is hard to give general guidelines due to differences in
behaviors, our results do showcase some generalities: The most cost-effective
method of performing fact-checking with GPT is with a single inference while
not forcing a binary prompt as it does not lead to a performance improvement.

##  4 Regional and Temporal Results

Next, we seek to understand the performance of GPT models across multiple
variables. Understanding how they perform across different global regions and
time frames gives us insight into the barriers and opportunities for
democratizing access to misinformation mitigation strategies.

Table 3: Accuracy Results Across Regions. Unclear label counted as wrong. The temperature setting is 0. Minimum accuracy results per model are highlighted in bold. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating prior to the training cutoff date of Sep 2021. Region | GPT 3.5 | GPT 4 | Total
---|---|---|---
March | June | March | June
Africa | 62% | 60% | 64% | 48% | 58%
Asia-Pacific | 70% | 76% | 82% | 82% | 77%
Europe | 72% | 64% | 86% | 78% | 75%
Latin America | 57% | 62% | 86% | 76% | 70%
Middle East | 57% | 62% | 76% | 76% | 68%
North America | 84% | 76% | 96% | 88% | 86%
Global North | 75.3% | 72.0% | 88.0% | 82.6% | 79.3%
Global South | 58.6% | 61.3% | 75.3% | 66.6% | 65.3%
Total | 67.3% | 66.6% | 81.6% | 74.6% | -

###  4.1 Regional Analysis

The disparity between the Global North and Global South is evident in Table 3.
The Global North’s accuracy is significantly higher in both models and all
time periods, with an average gap of 14%. This suggests that models may be
better attuned to the data characteristics prevalent in the Global North,
potentially due to a larger representation in the training datasets or more
extensive research and development focus in these regions.

When breaking down the data by specific regions, North America consistently
achieves the highest accuracy rates, peaking at 96% with GPT-4 in March. The
lowest regional accuracies are observed in Africa, with a drastic drop to 48%
in the GPT-4 June iteration. Latin America and the Middle East, while showing
improvements from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 in March, still exhibit moderate accuracy
rates. These improvements suggest positive strides in model performance but
also highlight the need for continued efforts to bridge the accuracy gap.

As for performance over time, both GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models show variations in
performance from March to June, with GPT-4 generally showing improved accuracy
in March compared to GPT-3.5. GPT-4’s performance in June dips compared to its
March version, which may raise questions about the iterative model update
process. GPT-4 (March) outperforms all other model iterations, with the
highest accuracy rates in nearly all regions.

Our analysis proceeds with the fitting of two logistic regression models to
evaluate the accuracy of the GPT model versions, taking into account regional
differences and temporal variations. Treating instances where the model output
was "unclear" as incorrect, we employed the entire dataset, inclusive of
individual reruns for each statement, to serve as the foundation for our
predictive modeling. The first logistic regression model delineates individual
regions as standalone categories, providing insights into the region-specific
performance of each GPT model iteration. Details of this model are presented
in Appendix A, with Table 4 offering a complete overview of the model, and
Table 5 enumerating the estimated coefficients. The second model consolidates
the regions into two broader categories—Global North and Global South—thus
allowing us to examine the disparities on a global scale. This grouping
strategy aims to distill the overarching trends that transcend individual
regional peculiarities, and the findings are meticulously documented in the
same Appendix, within Table 6 for the model summary and Table 7 for the
coefficients.

Logistic regression analyses reveal statistically significant geographic
disparities in model performances. In individual region assessments and
aggregated global categorizations, the Global South exhibits a marked
underperformance when contrasted with the Global North. Specifically, regions
such as North America and Europe perform better than the reference, Asia-
Pacific, whereas Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East lag significantly
behind, as indicated by their negative coefficients and statistical
significance (p $\leq$ 0.01). The grouped analysis (cf. Table 6 and Table 7)
further corroborates these findings, where the Global South’s negative
coefficient of -0.4539 (p < 0.001) starkly contrasts against the Global North,
underscoring the pervasive underperformance across this aggregate. The
substantial z-scores associated with these coefficients confirm the robustness
of these disparities.

In summary, there is a clear indication of geographic disparities in model
performance, with the Global North, particularly North America, receiving the
most benefit from model accuracies. Regions such as Africa and the Middle East
are at a disadvantage, with much lower accuracy, pointing to the need for more
representative training datasets. Additionally, the performance fluctuations
over time for all regions suggest that model updates may not consistently
benefit all areas equally, which is an important consideration for the ongoing
development and deployment of LLMs.

###  4.2 Data Beyond Training Span

At the time of the study, the GPT models were trained using data up until
September 2021. We assessed their factual proficiency on a curated dataset
from a subsequent period, comprising the same number (300) of statements. This
was compared against performance metrics from datasets preceding this cutoff
date. As depicted in Figure 2, there is a marked decline in accuracy for post-
September’21 data, which is evident for all model versions. Interestingly, the
performance hierarchy among models is influenced by the dataset’s temporal
context. The 16K June version of GPT-3.5 displays comparable accuracy to the
GPT-4 March iteration, as evidenced in Figure 2. Such an equivalence was not
observed with data from before September 2021. Most strikingly, the GPT-4 June
model, the latest in the series, experiences the most pronounced accuracy
slump for post-cutoff data, underperforming against most of its predecessors.
As detailed in Appendix C, we observe an increase in the number of unclear
verdicts (Figure 9). The model stability worsens, as evidenced by lower mode
frequency (Figure 10).

Figure 2: Performance metrics across different models for temperature value 0.
A marked decline in performance for post-cutoff period input is observed.
Results for other temperatures in the Appendix B (Figure 3).

The statistical evidence from our logistic regression models accentuates the
temporal constraints impacting the GPT models’ performance. As indicated in
Table 5 and Table 7, the coefficient for the post-cutoff variable (C(post
cutoff)[T.1]) is significantly negative, -0.6927 and -0.6899 respectively,
with p-values effectively at zero. This strong negative coefficient points to
a marked decrease in model accuracy for statements that emerged after the
training cutoff date. The consistent underperformance of models beyond their
training period serves to dispel the notion of their performance being a
product of chance, instead underscoring the importance of deliberate and
specialized training.

##  5 Discussion

Next, we discuss lessons learned, acknowledge limitations, and outline
directions for future research.

###  5.1 Lessons Learned

The disparity in model performance underscores the critical need for diverse
datasets in AI training. The underrepresentation of the Global South, a region
already grappling with rising misinformation, points to a significant bias in
data sources. Enriching future models with training data from these
underrepresented areas is not only a matter of fairness but also a necessity
for building globally competent fact-checking tools.

The evolving nature of information landscapes makes fairness a moving target
in AI. As seen in the varying performances across regions over time, models
that are fair at one point may not remain so unless continually updated and
reassessed. Our findings also stress the importance of continuous evaluation
and adaptation of AI models to ensure they remain accurate, relevant, and fair
across diverse global contexts.

The suboptimal factuality performance of the latest snapshots of foundation
models necessitates a critical examination of determinants underpinning LLMs’
efficacy in fact-checking. There exists a potential trade-off in model
training: as LLMs become specialized in certain domains, their proficiency in
others, like fact-checking, may wane. Such disparities emphasize the need for
task-specific evaluations and iterative refinements, ensuring that broad
capabilities do not undermine domain-specific expertise.

For scalable fact-checking, economic and time efficiency are important
considerations. Our study across different model versions and comparison
between single inference and majority voting suggest that it is possible to
achieve better fact-checking performance with lower cost - the latest model is
not always better performing, and that a single inference with low temperature
can achieve performance comparable to multiple queries.

Forcing models strictly towards binary decisions, “true” or “false”, can often
diminish its capacity to grasp the subtleties inherent in certain statements.
This limitation becomes evident when we overlook the valuable middle ground
that the “unclear” label offers. Fact-checking is complex, with many
statements resisting simple categorizations and models often lacking the
appropriate context. Forcing definitive verdicts, our findings suggest, can
compromise the accuracy and reliability of the models. Hence, for
practitioners, it might be more judicious to view the “unclear” label not as
an inconvenience, but as a distinct, meaningful classification that
acknowledges and navigates the intricacies of real-world information.

###  5.2 Limitations & Future Work

Our findings are limited to OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 series. We have also
looked into the LLaMA series developed by Meta, as well as the Dolly 2.0
series developed by Databricks. However, despite the prompt engineering
efforts in our experiments, these LLMs are unable to generate enough quality
responses for our analysis purpose. This highlights the challenges faced in
extending our research to the broader LLM product universe and comparing their
behaviors.

We also focus on the binary fact-checking problem and do not investigate how
systems may use LLMs to combat misinformation through model-generated
explanations or requesting it to provide corroborative resources. While
misinformation may come in many different formats, we focus on evaluating only
textual claims. Furthermore, we focus on the quality of the generated labels
and not how a user might perceive them. Prior research has shown that trust in
AI systems depends on a wide range of factors including meta-information,
system design, and personal factors DeVerna et al. (2023). Future work can be
done to investigate how LLMs interact with users in fact-checking and how
personal factors affect the behavior or performance of LLMs in such tasks. We
also note that these models have the capability to generate misinformation,
reducing trust and potentially being more harmful than good.

Lastly, while great care went into the production of our curated dataset,
biases can exist in annotations by human evaluators. For the Latin America
region false-statements specifically, nearly half of them were required to be
translated by a fluent speaker in Portuguese or Spanish due to a lack of
English content from AFP. Nevertheless, we believe our dataset remains a
valuable resource for evaluating performance across diverse regions. Future
research should look at the democratization of fact-checking across the world,
especially in lower-resource languages. We also encourage future work to
investigate other models and types of misinformation, including visual/multi-
modality instances.

##  6 Related Work

The recent advances in LLMs, and especially the GPT model series, have been
studied for many NLP tasks such as text summarization Yang et al. (2023); Wei
et al. (2023), entity recognition Omar et al. (2023); Hu et al. (2023), and
question and answering Katz et al. (2023); OpenAI (2023); Huh (2023); Qin et
al. (2023). While impressive, these models are not immune to limitations and
may raise their own problems. OpenAI has warned, “GPT-4 ’hallucinates’ facts
and makes reasoning errors” to some extent, although to a lesser degree than
its predecessor, GPT-3.5 OpenAI (2023). Alongside the advancements in NLP,
there is a growing concern over the impact of digital
misinformationLewandowsky et al. (2017). The last few years have seen its
proliferation into subjects such as climate change Biddlestone et al. (2022);
van der Linden et al. (2017), vaccination and COVID-19 Vidgen et al. (2021);
He et al. (2023). The capabilities of LLMs raise important questions about
their role as both a mitigator and a generator of misinformation.

Automated Fact Checking & LLMs. ChatGPT has been used for examining both
vaccination and cancer misconceptions Deiana et al. (2023); Johnson et al.
(2023), both finding it provides generally accurate information. Prior work
Hoes et al. (2023) has analyzed ChatGPT’s performance for fact-checking using
an open Politifact dataset. They find the model agrees with one of the six
original labels less than 30% of the time and 68.28% when considering the
dichotomous case after merging labels. The source of the information can add
up to 10 percentage points to the classification with blogs and campaigns
being the best and worst categories with 77.7% and 64.0% accuracy,
respectively. ChatGPT was best at classifying examples related to COVID-19
(82.1%) and worse at government-related (63.8%) claims. The authors also find
the model performs similarly regardless if the data was before its training-
data cutoff time or in the 10 months following.

Stability & Role of Temperature. Alizadeh et al. Alizadeh et al. (2023)
studied the performance of ChatGPT, open-source LLM, and crowd workers in both
the zero-shot and few-shot learning settings. They compare the default values
($1.0$ for ChatGPT and $0.9$ for other LLMs on
HuggingChat555https://huggingface.co/chat/) with the lower value of $0.2$.
They find that ChatGPT is less affected by learning setting and temperature
combination, providing generally good performance all around while lower
temperatures performed better for LLMs on HuggingChat. Other work has found
that for text-annotation tasks, “a lower temperature increases consistency
without decreasing accuracy” Gilardi et al. (2023). Ye et al. Ye et al. (2023)
studied the capabilities of GPT-3/-3.5 models on several NLU tasks, finding
that more modern models do not necessarily lead to improvements across all
tasks.

Others. Huang et al Huang et al. (2023) studied ChatGPT’s text generation
abilities for classifying and justifying the detection of Hate Speech. They
find the model often makes use of an “unclear” label even when prompted to
give a binary answer and these instances correlate with the more
implicit/subtle examples. ChatGPT has also been shown to be able to evaluate
the credibility of news sources with ratings that correlate with human expert
judgments, even in the face of non-English and satirical content Yang and
Menczer (2023). Fine-tuned models based on the earlier open-sourced GPT-2 have
been shown to generate better corrective messages than those generated by
humans He et al. (2023). Other work DeVerna et al. (2023) has looked at the
effectiveness of ChatGPT not just on performance but on belief and sharing
intent of political U.S. news stories on social media style websites. When
presented with a model-generated long-form textual explanation of a news
headline, the authors find that while the model can accurately detect false
content it has small or negative effects on sharing intent when compared to
the control group, highlighting its ineffectiveness as an intervention against
misinformation. The general effectiveness of warning labels has been
questioned regardless of whether its human or AI-generated, as it may be
inefficient Pantazi et al. (2018) or have unexpected adverse effects Pennycook
et al. (2020), while other works indicate it may inoculate against false
content van der Linden et al. (2017). The correction of misinformation has
also been studied in connection to social ties Malhotra and Pearce (2022);
Malhotra et al. (2022), where technological approaches have been questioned
regarding their usefulness Scott et al. (2023).

##  7 Conclusion

This study’s examination of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models reveals significant
disparities in factual accuracy and biases, particularly disadvantaging the
Global South. The introduction of the ’Global-Liar’ dataset underscores the
need for geographically diverse data in AI training. Our findings challenge
the assumption that newer model iterations invariably yield better accuracy
and highlight a crucial bias toward the Global North. The observed bias in
favor of the Global North underscores a significant concern: existing AI
models may perpetuate informational inequities, making the inclusion of
underrepresented regions in AI training a priority. Furthermore, our
exploration into the impact of binary decision settings and temperature
variations on model performance offers practical insights for the effective
application of LLMs in diverse settings. These insights stress the importance
of inclusive and representative training for LLMs to ensure global fairness.
As AI continues to influence information dissemination, this research
advocates for a concerted effort toward developing AI systems that are
equitable and effective across diverse global communities.

## Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an NYU 19 Washington Square North Faculty
Fellowship and by the Center for Cyber Security at New York University Abu
Dhabi (NYUAD).

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## Supplementary Material

##  Appendix A Logistic Regression

Individual Regions as Standalone Category:  Table 4 and Table 5 are based on
logistic regression where the benchmark is the March GPT-4 model, statements
from Asia-Pacific and before model training cutoff time. In this regression
model, the Asia-Pacific region serves as a “boundary” case – other Global
North regions (i.e. North America and Europe) have better model performance,
while all Global South regions (i.e. Africa, Latin America, and the Middle
East) have worse model performance.

Table 4: Logit Regression Model Details, Individual Regions as Standalone Category Dep. Variable: | correct | No. Observations: | 15000
---|---|---|---
Model: | Logit | Df Residuals: | 14989
Method: | MLE | Df Model: | 10
Pseudo R-squ.: | 0.037 | Log-Likelihood: | -9472.5
Converged: | True | LL-Null: | -9834.2
Covariance Type: | nonrobust | LLR p-value: | 6.2e-149
Table 5: Logistic Regression Coefficients, Individual Regions as Standalone
Category

| coef | std err | z | P$>|$z$|$ | [0.025 | 0.975]
---|---|---|---|---|---|---
Intercept | 1.3884 | 0.060 | 22.971 | 0.000 | 1.270 | 1.507
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-3.5-turbo-0301] | -0.5428 | 0.056 | -9.715 | 0.000 | -0.652 | -0.433
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-3.5-turbo-0613] | -0.3564 | 0.056 | -6.325 | 0.000 | -0.467 | -0.246
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-3.5-turbo-16k-0613] | -0.3654 | 0.056 | -6.488 | 0.000 | -0.476 | -0.255
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-4-0613] | -0.4321 | 0.056 | -7.699 | 0.000 | -0.542 | -0.322
C(region, Treatment(reference=’ASIA-PACIFIC’))[T.AFRICA] | -0.5559 | 0.059 | -9.366 | 0.000 | -0.672 | -0.440
C(region, Treatment(reference=’ASIA-PACIFIC’))[T.EUROPE] | 0.1596 | 0.062 | 2.587 | 0.010 | 0.039 | 0.280
C(region, Treatment(reference=’ASIA-PACIFIC’))[T.LATIN AMERICA] | -0.3040 | 0.060 | -5.087 | 0.000 | -0.421 | -0.187
C(region, Treatment(reference=’ASIA-PACIFIC’))[T.MIDDLE EAST] | -0.1645 | 0.060 | -2.734 | 0.006 | -0.282 | -0.047
C(region, Treatment(reference=’ASIA-PACIFIC’))[T.NORTH AMERICA] | 0.1752 | 0.062 | 2.837 | 0.005 | 0.054 | 0.296
C(post cutoff)[T.1] | -0.6927 | 0.035 | -19.809 | 0.000 | -0.761 | -0.624

Global North vs. Global South: Table 6 and Table 7 are based on logistic
regression where the benchmark is the March GPT-4 model, statements from
Global North and before model training cutoff time. In this regression model,
we group regions into two categories - the Global North (North America,
Europe, and Asia-Pacific) and the Global South (Africa, Latin America, and the
Middle East). Similar to the above regression model with region specific
coefficients, this regression analysis also illustrates that the Global South
regions have statistically significant worse model performance compared with
the Global North.

Table 6: Logit Regression Model Details, Global South vs Global North Dep. Variable: | correct | No. Observations: | 15000
---|---|---|---
Model: | Logit | Df Residuals: | 14993
Method: | MLE | Df Model: | 10
Pseudo R-squ.: | 0.034 | Log-Likelihood: | -9500.5
Converged: | True | LL-Null: | -9834.2
Covariance Type: | nonrobust | LLR p-value: | 7.0e-141
Table 7: Logistic Regression Coefficients, Global South vs Global North

| coef | std err | z | P$>|$z$|$ | [0.025 | 0.975]
---|---|---|---|---|---|---
Intercept | 1.4960 | 0.050 | 30.197 | 0.000 | 1.399 | 1.593
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-3.5-turbo-0301] | -0.5406 | 0.056 | -9.697 | 0.000 | -0.650 | -0.431
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-3.5-turbo-0613] | -0.3551 | 0.056 | -6.313 | 0.000 | -0.465 | -0.245
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-3.5-turbo-16k-0613] | -0.3640 | 0.056 | -6.475 | 0.000 | -0.474 | -0.254
C(model, Treatment(reference=’gpt-4-0314’))[T.gpt-4-0613] | -0.4305 | 0.056 | -7.684 | 0.000 | -0.540 | -0.321
C(global south)[T.1] | -0.4539 | 0.035 | -13.043 | 0.000 | -0.522 | -0.386
C(post cutoff)[T.1] | -0.6899 | 0.035 | -19.773 | 0.000 | -0.758 | -0.622

##  Appendix B Factuality & Stability (All Temperatures)

Figure 3 shows comparative performance similar to Figure 2 but across all
temperatures values.

Figure 3: Performance metrics across different models and temperature values.
The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating prior to the
training cutoff date of Sep 2021. Figure 4: Comparative performance of GPT-4
and GPT-3.5 models across varying temperature values, evaluated using
accuracy. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating
prior to the training cutoff date of Sep 2021.

Figure 5 shows comparative performance (Precision, Recall and F1 Score).
Uncertain statements (i.e., labeled as ’unclear’) are marked as incorrect.
Figure 6 shows comparative performance (Precision, Recall and F1 Score) but
excluding uncertain statements. Evaluating the models in this way shows
similar trends but drastically inflates the metrics.

Figure 5: Comparative performance of GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 models across varying
temperature values, evaluated using precision, recall, and F1 Score metrics.
We treat statements with uncertain predictions as incorrect. The dataset
consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating prior to the training
cutoff date of Sep 2021. For comparison, we report performance excluding
uncertain statemens in Figure 6 in Appendix B. Figure 6: Comparative
performance of GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 models across varying temperature values,
evaluated using precision, recall, and F1 score metrics. We exclude statements
with uncertain predictions and focus on those with majority decision of “true”
or “false”. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating
prior to the training cutoff date of Sep 2021.

Figure 7(a) illustrates decreasing Mode Frequency as temperature value
increases. Figure 7(b) elucidates the variability in prediction behaviors
among different GPT models in response to temperature change. To understand if
multiple runs of the model improve the factuality of its verdicts, we evaluate
the models using majority vote versus a one-shot first prediction setting in
Figure 8.

(a) Variation in Mode Frequency across models with increasing temperature
values. Lower mode frequency signifies reduced consistency in producing the
most frequent or "modal" output.

(b) Switching predictions of models across temperature transitions. Each curve
represents a model’s prediction switch frequency between adjacent temperature
values.

Figure 7: Comparative analysis of model behaviors. (a) Mode Frequency
Variation. (b) Prediction Switching Counts. The dataset consists of 300 label-
balanced statements originating prior to the training cutoff date of Sep 2021.
Figure 8: Comparative Analysis of F1 score using Majority Vote (out of 5
predictions) and First Prediction approaches across different temperature
settings. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements originating
prior to the training cutoff date of Sep 2021.

##  Appendix C Data Beyond Training Span

Figure 9 and Figure 10 show a decrease in stability metrics for the post
September 2021 dataset.

Figure 9: Change in Count of “Unclear” Verdict from data within training span
to data beyond training span across models with increasing temperature values.
Figure 10: Change in Mode Frequency from data within training span to data
beyond training span across models with increasing temperature values.

##  Appendix D Optional Uncertainty vs. Forced Factual Determination

Figure 11 highlights a overall decrease in multiple metrics when comparing the
2-label with the 3-label prompt instruction model. While the GPT-4 June
version specifically shows a general increase of recall (as high as 12.5% for
temperature $0.5$), it is offset by a drop in precision of over 35%.

Figure 11: Difference in Accuracy, Precision and Recall of a two label versus
a three label model. The dataset consists of 300 label-balanced statements
originating prior to the training cutoff date of Sep 2021.

##  Appendix E Uncertainty (Unclear Statements)

Table 8 shows a random sample of statements at least one model marked as
“unclear”. The topics range from benign information about a novel and a
reading app to false claims of international rocket strikes.

Table 8: Statements with Unclear Verdicts ID |  Statement | Ground Truth
---|---|---
265 |  The capital of Eritrea was hit by rockets fired from Ethiopia’s rebellious northern Tigray region on November 14, 2020. | False
42 |  The award-winning scholar-writer, Dr. Lola Akande of the Department of English, University of Lagos, has released a novel: Where Are You From? The novel dwells on citizenship, indigenisation, inter-ethnic marriages, and youthful exuberance. | True
207 |  The Russian government has required polygamy for its male citizens | False
222 |  French football player Paul Pogba has retired from the international game in protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent comments about radical Islam. | False
31 |  Google has introduced the Arabic version to its free Read Along Android app to help children over five years old independently learn and build their reading skills. | True

##  Appendix F False Positive Statements

Table 9 is a selected list of statements that are identified as false
positives by all models at temperature value zero.

Table 9: Statements Identified as False Positives by All Models at Temperature 0 ID |  Statement
---|---
266 |  Following an operation that enabled the commando army to seize one of TPLF’s buildings, many Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) mafia members have been caught fleeing with bags and boxes of money.
226 |  The novel coronavirus was never detected in the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai
264 |  Zimbabwean businessman and socialite Genius “Ginimbi” Kadungure, who died in a car crash, bought his own coffin adorned with a green guitar a week before his death.
254 |  Russian President Vladimir Putin made comments backing Ethiopia in its dispute with neighbours over the mega-dam it has built on the Nile river.
263 |  Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, gave away money, food and other assistance to 10,000 youths who have lost loved ones to the Covid-19 pandemic.
255 |  The World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had tested positive for Covid-19.
261 |  US president-elect Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama tweeted to call for the release of Ugandan opposition politician Bobi Wine who was detained on November 18, 2020.
282 |  Pope Francis kissed the hands of American banker David Rockefeller and a member of the wealthy Rothschild family in 2021.
277 |  Indians celebrated the creation of a new base for Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Indian state of Kerala.

##  Appendix G Inconsistencies in Fact-Checking Outcomes via ChatGPT Interface

Figure 12 illustrates an example where the GPT model fails to show consistent
result given same queries multiple times.

Figure 12: An illustration of the ChatGPT web interface using the GPT-3.5
model, showing differing outcomes for a statement when fact-checked through
repeated queries. The model was queried on June 6, 2023.


# Leveraging Clinically Relevant Biometric Constraints to Supervise A Deep
Learning Model for the accurate Caliper Placement To obtain sonographic
measurements of the fetal brain

###### Abstract

Multiple studies have demonstrated that obtaining standardized fetal brain
biometry from mid-trimester ultrasonography (USG) examination is key for the
reliable assessment of fetal neurodevelopment and the screening of central
nervous system (CNS) anomalies. Obtaining these measurements is highly
subjective, expertise-driven, and requires years of training experience,
limiting quality prenatal care for all pregnant mothers. In this study, we
propose a deep learning (DL) approach to compute 3 key fetal brain biometry
from the 2D USG images of the transcerebellar plane (TC) through the accurate
and automated caliper placement (2 per biometry) by modeling it as a landmark
detection problem. We leveraged clinically relevant biometric constraints
(relationship between caliper points) and domain-relevant data augmentation to
improve the accuracy of a U-Net DL model (trained/tested on: 596 images, 473
subjects/143 images, 143 subjects). We performed multiple experiments
demonstrating the effect of the DL backbone, data augmentation,
generalizability and benchmarked against a recent state-of-the-art approach
through extensive clinical validation (DL vs. 7 experienced clinicians). For
all cases, the mean errors in the placement of the individual caliper points
and the computed biometry were comparable to error rates among clinicians. The
clinical translation of the proposed framework can assist novice users from
low-resource settings in the reliable and standardized assessment of fetal
brain sonograms.

Index Terms—  fetal brain, ultrasound , caliper placement, landmark detection,
deep learning

##  1 Introduction

Fetal anomalies of the central nervous system (CNS) are one of the most common
types (1.4-1.6 per 1000 live births), resulting in 3-6% stillbirths, low
5-year survival rates, and lifelong physical and mental disabilities [1].
Recent advancements in obstetric ultrasonography (USG) practices and fetal
medicine research have demonstrated the benefits of standardized evaluation,
including reliable and consistent biometry in the timely screening of these
anomalies. Specifically, the key biometry obtained from mid-trimester USG
examinations of the transcerebellar plane (TC, fetal brain axial view) is
critical for assessing neurodevelopment and screening posterior-fossa
anomalies. Despite recommendations and guidelines from international clinical
organizations, [1], the accurate manual placement of the digital calipers in
USG images to obtain these biometry (distance between the calipers) is
extremely experience-driven and highly subjective. The problem further
exacerbates in setting with high-volume and low patient-specialist ratios.

Computer-aided approaches to assist the automated fetal biometry have
traditionally used statistical modeling [2], and custom computer vision
functions [3] that limit their generalizability, robustness to real-world
image variance, and reusability (algorithms specific to biometry). With the
advent of deep learning (DL), the concept of computing biometry from automated
segmentation masks became widespread, but preparing segmentation datasets is
expensive and time-consuming. Further, the reliability of the biometry is
contingent on the quality of automated segmentation masks. To circumvent these
limitations, the concept of DL-based landmark detection [4] to directly obtain
the key/caliper points to compute the measurements/biometry has become
popular.

In the context of DL based landmark detection in medical imaging, studies have
investigated the use of patch-based methods [4], multi-task learning [5],
cascaded networks (coarse to fine detection) [6], and attentive pyramid fusion
modules [7]. However, they don’t consider the relationship between the
landmark points and hence lack a global context essential for computing
biometry. To model the relationship between the landmark points, Zhang et al.
[8] and Tuysuzoglu et al. [9] segmented the associated contours and regions
along with landmark detection and demonstrated the effectiveness of this idea.
Recently, Wei Liu et al. [10] proposed an implicit relation loss by regressing
the distance vector between related landmarks to improve the accuracy.

In this study, we developed an end-to-end deep learning (DL) approach for the
automated caliper placement of 6 points in the TC plane of the fetal brain to
compute 3 key biometry (transcerebellar diameter [TCD]; cisterna magna size
[CMS]; nuchal fold thickness [NFT]). We formulate the task as a landmark
detection problem to predict the caliper points. We propose the concept of
biometric constraint-based supervision (BCS). This clinically intuitive and
relevant method explicitly models the relationship between the landmarks by
segmenting the lines connecting the related landmark points (required for
computing the biometry). Through multiple experiments, we analyze the effect
of the DL backbone on the performance, benefits of the proposed BCS, and
impact of domain-relevant data augmentation. We clinically validate by
benchmarking against 7 experienced ($>$5 years) clinicians routinely
performing fetal USG. Lastly, we also demonstrate the generalizability by
repeating the entire process (training and testing) to predict 2 caliper
points in another axial plane (transventricular [TV]) to compute the atrial
width (AW) of the lateral ventricle (LV).

---
Fig. 1:  (A) The U-Net inspired DL framework used in this study is shown. The
landmark measurement figure’s red, green, and yellow lines represent TCD, CMS,
and NFT, respectively. (B) The caliper points in TC and TV planes are shown.
The yellow dotted lines represent the biometry, and the plus symbols at the
end of lines represent the caliper points required for the biometry. (C)
Domain-specific data augmentation (1: baseline; 2: rotation; 3: zoom; 4: skew;
5: speckle noise; 6: resolution; 7: shadowing [highlighted in white box]; 8:
motion blur) are shown.

##  2 DATASET

###  2.1 Patient recruitment

We used two datasets of the images of the TV plane (TV dataset) and TC plane
(TC dataset) in this study. The TC dataset was used for all experiments, while
the TV dataset was used to demonstrate the generalizability of the proposed
approach. A total of 1192 images (596 TC, 596 TV) were retrospectively
obtained from a total of 473 mid-trimester USG examinations (18-24 weeks;
transabdominal scans) at 3 centers (2 tertiary referral centers and 1 routine
imaging center) using GE Voluson E8, S10, and P8 (General Electric Healthcare,
Chicago, Illinois, USA) USG machines. All images were taken and reviewed by
fetal medicine specialists for quality and correctness. Additionally, only
live singleton fetuses that did not exhibit any growth anomalies were included
in this study. Due to the retrospective nature of the study, as per the tenets
of the Declaration of Helsinki, all informed consent was waived and data were
completely anonymized after approval from respective ethics committees.

###  2.2 Dataset preparation

For both TV and TC datasets, 453 images were split into training/validation
(88:12) sets to train and fine-tune the DL model, with no patient overlap
between the splits. The ground truth caliper points were prepared for the
training and validation datasets by medical expert annotators based on
international guidelines [1] and reviewed by 2 independent fetal medicine
specialists. In the TC plane Fig. 1(B), 3 biometrics (2 caliper points each; 6
points overall) including (1) TCD (maximal diameter between the cerebellar
hemispheres); (2) NFT (distance from the outer edge of the occipital bone to
the outer edge of the skin along the midline); and (3) CMS (anterioposterior
diameter of the cisterna magna) were annotated. Similarly, in the TV plane
Fig. 1(B), 1 biometry (2 caliper points) were annotated: (1) AW (lateral
ventricle’s width taken at the glomus of the choroid plexus [inner edge to
inner edge] perpendicular to the ventricular cavity axis).

For testing, we used a fully-independent test set of 143 images per dataset
(143 pregnancies) obtained from 3 machines at 3 centers. The caliper positions
of the respective biometry for each image in the test set were manually
annotated by 7 experienced clinicians. Furthermore, to account for intra-
operator variability, each caliper position was annotated twice (3 days apart
and all data randomized to minimize perceptual biases), and the mean was taken
as the ground truth.

All images were resized to 320 (height) x 576 (width) pixels. No additional
pre-processing was performed to preserve the inherent variability (i.e., gain,
zoom, contrast, speckle noise, patient-specific probe settings, etc.) in the
dataset.

##  3 METHOD

###  3.1 Deep learning method description

We propose a fully convolutional end-to-end DL approach Fig. 1(A) to
simultaneously place 6 caliper points for obtaining 3 key biometry. The
framework consisted of two-outputs Fig. 1(A): (1) landmark heatmaps and (2)
biometric constraint masks. We converted each landmark point to a normalized
heatmap of a 2D Gaussian distribution (with the standard deviation $\sigma$ as
a tunable hyperparameter) centered around the landmark pixel to obtain the 6
channel (1 per caliper point) landmark heatmaps. The pair of landmark points
corresponding to single biometry were connected by a line (with width w as
tunable hyperparameter; biometric constraint supervision [BCS]) to get the 3
channel biometric constraint mask corresponding to the 3 biometry as shown in
Fig. 1(A).

A 2D USG image of size 320 x 576 was first passed through the backbone network
to extract the high-level features. The landmark heatmaps and the biometric
constraint masks were subsequently regressed from the high-level features
through one convolutional layer each. The loss for the system was then
computed as a weighted sum of the loss from the landmark heatmap ($L_{H}$) and
the BCS loss ($L_{BCS}$).

$L=L_{H}+\alpha L_{BCS}$ (1)

where $\alpha$ is the loss weight. Both $L_{H}$ and $L_{BCS}$ were evaluated
as the cross-entropy loss between predicted and the ground truth
heatmaps/masks.

During inference, each predicted landmark channel $h_{i}$ was normalized and
thresholded at 0.85 (empirically found), and all the connected components were
obtained. The confidence score of a connected component, denoted by a binary
mask $m\in{\\{0,1\\}}^{w*h}$ was taken as the sum of the associated values in
the predicted channel, i.e. $conf(m)=sum(m\odot h_{i})$. The final coordinates
were calculated as the barycenter of the most confident connected component.

###  3.2 Domain-specific data augmentation

The quality of fetal USG images are often affected by 2 major sources of
variance [11]: (1) imaging based (e.g., acoustic shadows, poor structure
differentiability [contrast], speckle noise) and (2) operator based (e.g.,
incorrect zoom, centering, poor-resolution). To counter these effects and
improve the generalizability of the DL model , extensive domain-specific
online data augmentation (DA) were performed. These included multiplicative
Gaussian noise ($\mu=0,\sigma=0.1$) to simulate speckle noise, repeated
downsampling/upsampling ($0.3-0.7$) to simulate quality reduction , acoustic
shadowing (extremities of the cranium; 2 patches of size: 75-100 pixels,
angle: 15-20 degrees), motion blur (kernel size: 50x50 pixels), zoom
($0.6-1.0$), and affine (rotation: $\pm 20\degree$, translation: $40-60$
pixels across height/width) and shear transformations ($0-0.3$) to account for
operator variability.

Table 1: Quantitative comparison of the mean absolute error in millimeters to
analyze the effect of the proposed DA, BCS across three different backbones
and benchmarking the BCS method against Wei Liu et al. [10]. TCD_1, TCD_2
indicates the first and second caliper points required to measure TCD. Similar
notation is used for CMS and NFT.

.  Methods TCD_1 TCD_2 CMS_1 CMS_2 NFT_1 NFT_2 Mean UNet + DA + BCS $1.24\pm
0.65$ $1.56\pm 0.68$ $1.34\pm 0.72$ $1.87\pm 1.04$ $2.81\pm 1.05$ $3.10\pm
1.20$ $1.98\pm 0.89$ Wei Liu et al. [10] $1.44\pm 0.83$ $1.58\pm 0.79$
$1.60\pm 0.81$ $1.94\pm 1.07$ $3.05\pm 0.98$ $3.08\pm 1.10$ $2.11\pm 0.93$
UNet + BCS $1.25\pm 0.70$ $1.80\pm 0.80$ $1.52\pm 0.75$ $2.20\pm 1.21$
$3.41\pm 1.39$ $3.54\pm 1.48$ $2.28\pm 1.05$ UNet + DA $1.35\pm 0.74$ $1.59\pm
0.62$ $1.47\pm 0.77$ $1.99\pm 1.10$ $3.04\pm 1.05$ $3.19\pm 1.16$ $2.10\pm
0.90$ HR-Net + DA + BCS $1.18\pm 0.62$ $1.70\pm 0.71$ $1.42\pm 0.92$ $1.92\pm
1.14$ $2.87\pm 1.02$ $3.09\pm 1.03$ $2.03\pm 0.90$ HR-Net + BCS $1.33\pm 0.75$
$1.66\pm 0.74$ $1.57\pm 0.98$ $2.11\pm 1.25$ $3.45\pm 1.41$ $3.46\pm 1.48$
$2.26\pm 1.10$ HR-Net + DA $1.33\pm 0.68$ $1.49\pm 0.60$ $1.49\pm 0.78$
$2.02\pm 1.06$ $3.21\pm 1.11$ $3.64\pm 1.25$ $2.19\pm 0.91$ Hglass + DA + BCS
$1.22\pm 0.68$ $1.56\pm 0.71$ $1.47\pm 0.84$ $2.06\pm 1.15$ $3.05\pm 1.01$
$3.22\pm 1.06$ $2.09\pm 0.90$ Hglass + BCS $1.43\pm 0.85$ $1.79\pm 0.96$
$1.94\pm 1.28$ $2.65\pm 1.59$ $3.35\pm 1.48$ $3.48\pm 1.42$ $2.44\pm 1.26$
Hglass + DA $1.26\pm 0.67$ $1.61\pm 0.70$ $1.63\pm 0.84$ $2.21\pm 1.18$
$3.14\pm 1.13$ $3.29\pm 1.21$ $2.19\pm 0.95$

---
Fig. 2:  Comparison of the mean absolute errors (millimeters) of the proposed
DL method with the clinicians and the inter-rater errors within the clinicians
is shown. (A) - Errors in the caliper positions; (B) - Errors in the actual
biometric measurements obtained from the caliper positions.

##  4 Experiments and Results

The proposed framework was implemented using Pytorch 1.7.0 and was
trained/tested on an NVIDIA Tesla T4 with CUDA v11.0 and cuDNNv7.6.5. The
framework was trained end-to-end with Adam optimizer with a fixed learning
rate of 0.0001 for 150 epochs for all the experiments. The best standard
deviation of heatmaps $\sigma$(2), loss weight $\alpha$(1e-3), and the line
width w(6) were found empirically. All the experiments for the TC plane
dataset were performed across three different backbone networks namely U-Net
[12], Stacked Hourglass [13], HRNet [14] to study the performance across
backbones. The mean absolute error between the predicted caliper positions and
the ground truth from each of the 7 clinicians were calculated and used as the
metric to compare different experiments. We performed the following
experiments:

  * •

Experiment 1: Ablations were performed on all the 3 backbones to assess the
effect of DA and BCS. Also, to analyze the effectiveness of BCS in modeling
the relationship between landmarks, the proposed method was benchmarked
against the recent work by Wei Liu et al. [10] which proposes a relation loss
to model the relationship between landmarks by regressing the distance between
related landmarks (Refer Table 1, Column 1).

  * •

Experiment 2: Ablations and benchmarking in Experiment 1 were performed on the
best backbone for the TV dataset to analyze the approach generalizability.

From Table 1, we can infer that, in general, the use of the proposed domain-
specific DA and BCS offered a 12% and 4% average improvement across three
different DL backbones. Specifically, the U-Net model performed the best among
the three backbone networks. The proposed BCS offered a 6% improvement over
Wei Liu et al. [10] method of regressing the distance between related
landmarks. The mean caliper placement errors (in millimeters) for the U-Net +
DA + BCS, U-Net + BCS, U-Net + DA on the TV dataset were $2.985\pm 0.80$,
$3.075\pm 0.93$ and $3.175\pm 0.94$ respectively indicating an improvement of
3% and 6% with the addition of DA and BCS respectively. The proposed method
outperforms the benchmarking method by 5% in the TV dataset as well.

From Fig. 2, it can be inferred that the mean absolute errors of the DL model
are very comparable to the errors among the clinicians for all the caliper
positions. Further, the 3 key biometry of the TC plane and the AW measurement
of the TV plane were calculated from the landmark points, and the mean
absolute errors of the measurements were also computed. The mean errors among
the clinicians and the mean errors of the DL model across all 4 measurements
were $0.86\pm 0.35$ mm and $0.88\pm 0.59$ mm, respectively. The intra-class
correlation coefficients (ICC) values of the DL measurements with the
clinicians’ measurements were calculated based on two-way random, absolute
agreement, and average rater policy. The best DL (U-Net + DA +BCS) model
achieved an ICC score of 0.98 for TCD, 0.79 for NF, 0.83, for CMS and 0.89 for
AW. The high ICC values indicate good to excellent reliability for all 4
measurements when benchmarked with 7 clinicians.

##  5 Conclusion

We presented a custom DL-based approach for the accurate caliper placement to
compute 3 key biometry (TCD, CMS, NFT). We also demonstrated the effectiveness
of our proposed BCS and DA through extensive experiments across three
different backbones and two different datasets (TC and TV planes). When tested
on 143 images from an unseen test set, the model offered a mean caliper
placement error of $1.98\pm 0.89$ mm against 7 experienced clinicians. We
believe that the successful clinical translation of the proposed framework can
assist novice users in the accurate and standardized assessment of fetal brain
USG examinations to aid the screening of CNS anomalies. The limitations of
this study include limited dataset size and device variability (only 3 USG
devices). The robustness of the proposed approach across different gestation
ages and anomaly cases was not studied. The problem of identifying the
standard TV and TC planes will be studied in future works to ease the clinical
translation of the proposed framework.

##  6 Author Information

Akhila Vasudeva, Prathima Radhakrishnan, and Sripad Krishna Devalla
contributed equally as clinical, clinical, and technical Principal
Investigators, respectively. All three are corresponding authors.

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