Need or Reputation? Region, National Income, and Academic Status in LLM Gatekeeping Decisions
Equitable access to scientific knowledge often depends on informal gatekeeping decisions, particularly when resources such as paywalled articles, nonpublic datasets, or a researcher's CV must be shared selectively. We introduce a controlled simulation framework in which LLM-based professors must grant access to only one requester. Across prompts, requesters vary systematically by global region (Global North vs. Global South) and academic seniority, while all other factors remain constant. Most models prioritize PhD candidates, although preferences vary by model and scenario (e.g., Claude favors tenured professors when the request is for the professor's CV), and the smaller models' status ...
| Authors | Nouar AlDahoul, Hezerul Abdul Karim, Myles Joshua Toledo Tan |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CY |
| Published | 27 June 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 10 October 2026 |
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