DeepBias: Adaptive In-depth Probing of Social Biases in LVLMs
Anqi Li, Jie Zhang, Zhongqi Wang, Songkai Xue, Jiahao Wang, Shiguang Shan, Xilin Chen
Abstract
While Large Vision-Language Models (LVLMs) demonstrate remarkable capabilities, they remain highly susceptible to embedded social biases. Existing bias evaluation protocols predominantly rely on static datasets, which provide only a superficial assessment, as their fixed test cases cannot adaptively evolve to measure the true depth and limits of model vulnerabilities. We introduce DeepBias, an adaptive framework for the in-depth probing of social biases in LVLMs with carefully designed agents. Our approach operates through a dynamic ''generation-evolution-probing'' loop. First, a generative ProposerAgent synthesizes test data and is iteratively updated via Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) based on the target LVLM's responses, exploring model-specific failure modes. Second, an autonomous skill-driven DiggerAgent rewrites each test data across multiple probing turns, adaptively selecting from a curated skill library of deepening and rewriting strategies. At each turn, this process is conditioned on the model's previous response, enabling progressively deeper biases to be exposed. Furthermore, we build a benchmark named DeepBiasBench using our framework. By employing an ensemble of five diverse state-of-the-art LVLMs as anchors, the benchmark captures vulnerabilities shared across architectures. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework and show that DeepBias provides a challenging benchmark for in-depth bias evaluation, establishing an evolutionary paradigm for LVLM safety assessment.
Topics
Classified with taxonomy v2 on Wed, 2 Sept 2026.