Computational Linguistic Researcher
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Domain Anchorage in GPT-4: A Computational Linguistic Analysis of Lexicographic Profiling and Its Implications for Unintended Information DisseminationAuthors: Lekha Challappa, Jenevieve Zhang, and Rajiv Garg PhDAbstract: Our study expands upon recent work explaining in-context learning as implicit Bayesian inference, where language models infer shared latent concepts from examples. We analyze GPT-4’s semantic attention post-domain priming, using computational linguistics to quantify response similarity to lexicographically independent queries with the same intent. We assess the potential for privacy breaches due to domain anchorage, examining how attention and embedding layers process linguistic patterns. We hypothesize that domain-specific words receiving higher gradient updates can introduce bias, create semantic echo chambers, and oversimplify relationships. Grounded in Mohamed Zakaria Kurdi’s frameworks, this research uses lexical, semantic, syntactic, and positional similarities to analyze GPT-4’s vector transformations and attention distributions. By simulating domain-specific interactions through declarative primes and interrogative inputs, we highlight significant privacy and ethical concerns, as the model may share information across users due to domain anchorage.Recognition: Abstract presented at POMS (Production & Operations Management Conference) 2024Publication: HICSS 2025