4 ms·

you have the wrong conceptual model of how LLMs do the thing they do

lopkeny12ko 3y ago
The only reason I say this is because I have tried. I asked an LLM to decode a variety of base64 strings, and every single time, it said the deocded ASCII was "Hello, world!" This doesn't come as a surprise to me. Unless it was trained on a dataset that included a mapping of every base64-encoded character, it's just going to pattern-complete on sequences of base64-encoded-like characters and assume it translates to "Hello, world!" from some programming tutorial it was trained on.
- TheGeminon 3y ago
  That kind of decoding is a bit different though. For one, the tokenization process makes encodings difficult to handle (unless it’s trained on a lot of pairs). This would be more akin to asking ChatGPT to help build a black box parser for base64, not asking it to decode it itself.
- M4v3R 3y ago
  Which model did you use? GPT-4 can encode and decode Base64, at least for short strings. I was pretty surprised when I first saw that. Proof: https://chat.openai.com/share/9382be94-d59a-4a2a-b03b-43dba32fe0f7 https://chat.openai.com/share/9382be94-d59a-4a2a-b03b-43dba3... https://chat.openai.com/share/421cc39e-ea9c-4ff6-9e45-1aa15158330b https://chat.openai.com/share/421cc39e-ea9c-4ff6-9e45-1aa151...
  - LinuxBender 3y ago
    Can it figure this one out without any hints? Not base64. Use case [1] ONXW2ZLUNBUW4Z2AONXW2ZLXNBSXEZJOORWGI=== [1] - https://ohblog.net/about/ https://ohblog.net/about/
    - stavros 3y ago
      > The string you've provided appears to be encoded in Base32. Decoding this string from Base32, it results in: > "This is a test. This is only a test." So, it got the base32 part right, but the decoding wrong. I would have been extremely surprised if it got the decoding right, though.
      - LinuxBender 3y ago
        That's still kinda cool. Now I'm curious if it can decode all the figlet fonts too. Size can be controlled with HTML as some are easier to read visually by a human if smaller [Edit] - This might makes ones eyes bleed but I am curious if it can read this [1]. If installing figlet type showfigfonts to see examples of all the installed fonts. More can be installed [2] in /usr/share/figlet/fonts/ [1] - https://ohblog.net/chatgpt_test/ https://ohblog.net/chatgpt_test/ [2] - https://github.com/xero/figlet-fonts https://github.com/xero/figlet-fonts
  - waveBidder 3y ago
    3.5 can't, just tried and got this https://chat.openai.com/share/31e7038e-d594-4c6f-8f6e-27e920946098 https://chat.openai.com/share/31e7038e-d594-4c6f-8f6e-27e920.... they probably specifically added a bunch of examples.
- JCharante 3y ago
  GPT4 can absolutely decode base64. Early jailbreaks were to base64 a python-based jailbreak to get it to output whatever you wanted and later OpenAI added a patch to filter base64 outputs to follow their rules.

The only reason I say this is because I have tried. I asked an LLM to decode a variety of base64 strings, and every single time, it said the deocded ASCII was "Hello, world!" This doesn't come as a surprise to me. Unless it was trained on a dataset that included a mapping of every base64-encoded character, it's just going to pattern-complete on sequences of base64-encoded-like characters and assume it translates to "Hello, world!" from some programming tutorial it was trained on.

TheGeminon 3y ago
That kind of decoding is a bit different though. For one, the tokenization process makes encodings difficult to handle (unless it’s trained on a lot of pairs). This would be more akin to asking ChatGPT to help build a black box parser for base64, not asking it to decode it itself.
M4v3R 3y ago
Which model did you use? GPT-4 can encode and decode Base64, at least for short strings. I was pretty surprised when I first saw that. Proof: https://chat.openai.com/share/9382be94-d59a-4a2a-b03b-43dba32fe0f7 https://chat.openai.com/share/9382be94-d59a-4a2a-b03b-43dba3... https://chat.openai.com/share/421cc39e-ea9c-4ff6-9e45-1aa15158330b https://chat.openai.com/share/421cc39e-ea9c-4ff6-9e45-1aa151...
- LinuxBender 3y ago
  Can it figure this one out without any hints? Not base64. Use case [1] ONXW2ZLUNBUW4Z2AONXW2ZLXNBSXEZJOORWGI=== [1] - https://ohblog.net/about/ https://ohblog.net/about/
  - stavros 3y ago
    > The string you've provided appears to be encoded in Base32. Decoding this string from Base32, it results in: > "This is a test. This is only a test." So, it got the base32 part right, but the decoding wrong. I would have been extremely surprised if it got the decoding right, though.
    - LinuxBender 3y ago
      That's still kinda cool. Now I'm curious if it can decode all the figlet fonts too. Size can be controlled with HTML as some are easier to read visually by a human if smaller [Edit] - This might makes ones eyes bleed but I am curious if it can read this [1]. If installing figlet type showfigfonts to see examples of all the installed fonts. More can be installed [2] in /usr/share/figlet/fonts/ [1] - https://ohblog.net/chatgpt_test/ https://ohblog.net/chatgpt_test/ [2] - https://github.com/xero/figlet-fonts https://github.com/xero/figlet-fonts
- waveBidder 3y ago
  3.5 can't, just tried and got this https://chat.openai.com/share/31e7038e-d594-4c6f-8f6e-27e920946098 https://chat.openai.com/share/31e7038e-d594-4c6f-8f6e-27e920.... they probably specifically added a bunch of examples.
JCharante 3y ago
GPT4 can absolutely decode base64. Early jailbreaks were to base64 a python-based jailbreak to get it to output whatever you wanted and later OpenAI added a patch to filter base64 outputs to follow their rules.