prompt sensitivity

Instruction Sensitivity Undermines Embedding Model Evaluation: Single-Prompt Benchmarks Are Insufficient

This paper presents an empirical study of prompt sensitivity in instruction-tuned embedding models, covering 6 models, 11 datasets, and 15 task-specific prompts per dataset (990 total evaluations). The authors demonstrate that single-prompt evaluation systematically misrepresents true model performance, with default prompts both understating and overstating capabilities depending on phrasing. A key finding is that leaderboard rankings are not robust: by selecting prompts favorably, any model in the study can be promoted to first place. The authors recommend that benchmarks incorporate prompt robustness metrics, either through multi-prompt evaluation or by reporting sensitivity alongside point estimates.