ChatGPT as a Text Simplification Tool to Remove Bias

The presence of specific linguistic signals particular to a certain sub-group of people can be picked up by language models during training. This may lead to discrimination if the model has learnt to pick up on a certain group's language. If the model begins to associate specific language with a distinct group, any decisions made based upon this language would hold a strong correlation to a decision based on their protected characteristic. We explore a possible technique for bias mitigation in the form of simplification of text. The driving force of this idea is that simplifying text should standardise language to one way of speaking while keeping the same meaning. The experiment shows promising results as the classifier accuracy for predicting the sensitive attribute drops by up to 17% for the simplified data.