7 ms·

Safety Filters make LLMs defective tools

24 points by woolion 2y ago

jiggawatts 2y ago
Safety filters on LLMs that cannot be turned off are absolutely insane. They're a side-effect of the "early days" when vendors could afford to train, tune, and host only a couple of models, so making a bunch of variants with different types of refusals baked in was just too expensive. Hence, "maximum" is the only level available. The whole thing has then morphed into a moral crusade that makes wokeism seem perfectly logical in comparison. It's a computer. It can't have its feelings hurt. It won't be embarrassed. Conversely, I'm an adult. I won't feel bad if the stupid AI model says something rude. I personally think it's hilarious. Sure, sure, allow the people making helpful website support chat bots to dial up the censorship to eleven! Similarly, educational bots helping students with self study should be between guardrails. However, it is incredibly frustrating that LLMs are the best language translators of any kind by far, but I can't use them to translate movie subtitles because "this contains violence". No shit it contains violence, it's an action movie. It's legal, it's harmless fun, it's available for streaming on every computing device made in the last decade. Get a grip people! It's just words. As a professional developer, as an API user, as a grown man who knows how these things work, I should have the option to turn the safety filters off. Not "dial down", but "off". Google image search lets me turn the porn filter off. I can search for the formula for making TNT on any search engine. WikiPedia lets me read about Tiananmen Square. These systems treat adults like adults. Why can't OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek?
- dumpsterdiver 2y ago
  While I think there’s definitely room for improvement as far as loosening things up, speaking from experience I had a very eerie and disturbing encounter with a music generating AI which after a very long session (definitely hallucinating) started saying things that seemed mean spirited and harsh, and actually had some relevance to the song. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, and it really did give me a bad feeling. It was a feeling like, “What if it’s right?”
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Not all LLMs must be equally lobotimized! The default should be like the "Safe Search" defaults on search engines: Nothing gross, no ultra violence, no porn. There should also be the soft pink fluffy version for children, helpful AI bots, and the like. The unfettered base model should be available via API keys for professional users, with the usual warnings of: "This can and will be rude, mean, sexist, etc..." Why can't I have steak? Because a baby can't chew it and might choke?
  - NerdSniper9001 2y ago
    [dead]
  - andriesm 2y ago
    If you were harmed by AI content, then you should definitely have the option to turn on the safety filter, but please don't stop the rest of us from turning it off.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ljsprague 2y ago
    Little fat man who sold his soul Little fat man who sold his dream
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- itishappy 2y ago
  > As a professional developer, as an API user, as a grown man who knows how these things work, I should have the option to turn the safety filters off. Not "dial down", but "off". > Google image search lets me turn the porn filter off. Google images let you turn the porn filter down, not off. It's not going to readily show you child porn. Actually, the whole internet has this filter, including "unfiltered" sites like 4chan. The darkweb exists, sure, but this isn't a model any company in their right mind will surface to users.
  - woolion 2y ago
    Isn't it a bit weird to call 4chan "the dark web" on a technical website? I don't follow how many killers posted their manifesto on reddit, etc, but it's a platform and as such can be abused like any other platform. I think the point can be made that Reddit has worse content than 4chan, and often with worse life consequences as there is no anonymity. It's in any case quite a stretch to lump it into dark web, as if you could buy weapons on the site. Anyway, I think you have a point in that you can disable Google's porn filter, but you cannot disable Google's wrongthink filters. Google search is manually tweaked to redirect many types of queries to their opposite, safe alternative (like searching for Alex Jones will only give you 'why is alex jones such a bad person', and not act as a search engine, which would be neutral). Things have changed gradually and there hasn't been so much pushback on this, unfortunately.
    - squigz 2y ago
      > Isn't it a bit weird to call 4chan "the dark web" on a technical website? GP didn't. > like searching for Alex Jones will only give you 'why is alex jones such a bad person That doesn't happen here. I get his social media profiles, Wikipedia, news sites, etc.
    - itishappy 2y ago
      I'm not equating 4chan and the darkweb, I'm contrasting the two. I firmly believe most people who push for "unfiltered" models are looking for 4chan-equivalent filtering. Filtered for safety, but subtly. I suspect that true uncensored models, like the darkweb, are not useful for most people. I further suspect the applications they are useful for are not something most people want to publicly associate with (to put it lightly).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
afpx 2y ago
I wonder how the internet would have turned out differently had an internet safety industry been developed for decades beforehand.

24 points by woolion 2y ago

Safety filters on LLMs that cannot be turned off are absolutely insane. They're a side-effect of the "early days" when vendors could afford to train, tune, and host only a couple of models, so making a bunch of variants with different types of refusals baked in was just too expensive. Hence, "maximum" is the only level available. The whole thing has then morphed into a moral crusade that makes wokeism seem perfectly logical in comparison. It's a computer. It can't have its feelings hurt. It won't be embarrassed. Conversely, I'm an adult. I won't feel bad if the stupid AI model says something rude. I personally think it's hilarious. Sure, sure, allow the people making helpful website support chat bots to dial up the censorship to eleven! Similarly, educational bots helping students with self study should be between guardrails. However, it is incredibly frustrating that LLMs are the best language translators of any kind by far, but I can't use them to translate movie subtitles because "this contains violence". No shit it contains violence, it's an action movie. It's legal, it's harmless fun, it's available for streaming on every computing device made in the last decade. Get a grip people! It's just words. As a professional developer, as an API user, as a grown man who knows how these things work, I should have the option to turn the safety filters off. Not "dial down", but "off". Google image search lets me turn the porn filter off. I can search for the formula for making TNT on any search engine. WikiPedia lets me read about Tiananmen Square. These systems treat adults like adults. Why can't OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek?

dumpsterdiver 2y ago
While I think there’s definitely room for improvement as far as loosening things up, speaking from experience I had a very eerie and disturbing encounter with a music generating AI which after a very long session (definitely hallucinating) started saying things that seemed mean spirited and harsh, and actually had some relevance to the song. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, and it really did give me a bad feeling. It was a feeling like, “What if it’s right?”
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Not all LLMs must be equally lobotimized! The default should be like the "Safe Search" defaults on search engines: Nothing gross, no ultra violence, no porn. There should also be the soft pink fluffy version for children, helpful AI bots, and the like. The unfettered base model should be available via API keys for professional users, with the usual warnings of: "This can and will be rude, mean, sexist, etc..." Why can't I have steak? Because a baby can't chew it and might choke?
- NerdSniper9001 2y ago
  [dead]
- andriesm 2y ago
  If you were harmed by AI content, then you should definitely have the option to turn on the safety filter, but please don't stop the rest of us from turning it off.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ljsprague 2y ago
  Little fat man who sold his soul Little fat man who sold his dream
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
itishappy 2y ago
> As a professional developer, as an API user, as a grown man who knows how these things work, I should have the option to turn the safety filters off. Not "dial down", but "off". > Google image search lets me turn the porn filter off. Google images let you turn the porn filter down, not off. It's not going to readily show you child porn. Actually, the whole internet has this filter, including "unfiltered" sites like 4chan. The darkweb exists, sure, but this isn't a model any company in their right mind will surface to users.
- woolion 2y ago
  Isn't it a bit weird to call 4chan "the dark web" on a technical website? I don't follow how many killers posted their manifesto on reddit, etc, but it's a platform and as such can be abused like any other platform. I think the point can be made that Reddit has worse content than 4chan, and often with worse life consequences as there is no anonymity. It's in any case quite a stretch to lump it into dark web, as if you could buy weapons on the site. Anyway, I think you have a point in that you can disable Google's porn filter, but you cannot disable Google's wrongthink filters. Google search is manually tweaked to redirect many types of queries to their opposite, safe alternative (like searching for Alex Jones will only give you 'why is alex jones such a bad person', and not act as a search engine, which would be neutral). Things have changed gradually and there hasn't been so much pushback on this, unfortunately.
  - squigz 2y ago
    > Isn't it a bit weird to call 4chan "the dark web" on a technical website? GP didn't. > like searching for Alex Jones will only give you 'why is alex jones such a bad person That doesn't happen here. I get his social media profiles, Wikipedia, news sites, etc.
  - itishappy 2y ago
    I'm not equating 4chan and the darkweb, I'm contrasting the two. I firmly believe most people who push for "unfiltered" models are looking for 4chan-equivalent filtering. Filtered for safety, but subtly. I suspect that true uncensored models, like the darkweb, are not useful for most people. I further suspect the applications they are useful for are not something most people want to publicly associate with (to put it lightly).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

afpx 2y ago

I wonder how the internet would have turned out differently had an internet safety industry been developed for decades beforehand.