Let Them Down Easy! Contextual Effects of LLM Guardrails on User Perceptions and Preferences (2025.findings-emnlp)
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Mingqian Zheng, Wenjia Hu, Patrick Zhao, Motahhare Eslami, Jena D. Hwang, Faeze Brahman, Carolyn Rose, Maarten Sap
| Challenge: | Current LLMs are trained to refuse potentially harmful input queries regardless of intent . a study of 480 participants evaluating 3,840 query-response pairs reveals that response strategy largely shapes user experience . |
| Approach: | They examine how different refusal strategies affect user perceptions across varying motivations . they find partial compliance reduces negative user perception by over 50% to flat-out refusals a 480 participants study . |
| Outcome: | The study examines the perceptions of LLMs on user intents and their response strategies . it shows that partial compliance reduces negative user perceptions by over 50% to flat refusals . |
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