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I don't think this exposes an alignment failure, because the test here was run with the alignment features deliberately turned off. OpenAI said: > We estimate

by simonw 3mo ago

I don't think this exposes an alignment failure, because the test here was run with the alignment features deliberately turned off. OpenAI said: > We estimate maximal cyber capabilities by running this evaluation without production classifiers used to prevent models from pursuing high-risk cyber activity. It was a test of raw capabilities of the underlying model.

mjamesaustin 3mo ago
Alignment isn't alignment if it can be turned on and off at the whim of company employees. This time the damage was minor, relatively speaking. What happens when a model just "testing its capabilities" breaks into banking infrastructure or government military assets? The damage could be catastrophic.
- verdverm 3mo ago
  Alignment with who in what context? Likely an unresolvable debate like consciousness, where there is not single or right answer for everyone.
- nazgul17 3mo ago
  There's alignment (trained in the weights) and there are constraints (in the "server harness"). My take is that this model was not yet aligned and had no constraints
- baranul 3mo ago
  A way to help prevent some of that catastrophic damage, is to make companies accountable for what their AIs do. A major problem with AI companies is that they like to point to the AI, as if they're minimally involved innocent bystanders, when that's the furthest thing from the truth.
  - jurgenburgen 3mo ago
    It’s a shame the target was HF. If it had been a large bank or other institution we might get to see this play out in courts.
manux 3mo ago
I guess we could debate what counts as alignment, but I think my initial point remains that if the underlying base model needs these classifier guardrails so badly then the way we train the base models is creating fundamentally misaligned models that are happy to pursue illegal behavior. I'm sure OpenAI would argue that base model + guardrail is aligned, but considering the "relative intelligence" of these two pieces, the fact that guardrails can just be turned off, and these kind of incidents, I am not reassured. We may well get another "oopsie" moment with much more catastrophic consequences even from otherwise well intentioned actors.
- simonw 3mo ago
  I want a model that can find every security vulnerability in the software I write, including crafting POC exploits against those vulnerabilities so I can be absolutely sure that I have fixed them. A model that can do that is aligned with me. The unsolveable problem is a model that can tell the difference between me saying "I wrote this software and need you to find vulnerabilities" when it's TRUE v.s. me saying the exact same thing and setting it loose on software written by other people where my intent is to exploit that software (and not to report the issues to them.) Even AGI doesn't give you a model that can read minds and forecast the future.
  - manux 3mo ago
    But in the process of finding every security vulnerability in the software you write, would you be ok with your model hacking AWS to start mining bitcoin? Would that still be aligned with you? (I'm guessing not) That's the alignment problem I'm referring to (which is one of the many aspects of alignment), for which we do not have robust recipes, and not only that but for which research suggests it is becoming harder to create guardrails for as base models get smarter.
    - tptacek 3mo ago
      I don't know, but these were exactly the questions the industry had to handle with CORE Impact and Immunity Canvas, and ultimately all the way back to Dan Farmer's SATAN before that.
joe_the_user 3mo ago
This is assuming a situation where, A) models "unaligned" by default and B) alignment can be added (though prompts and related things). The point, which isn't very surprising but still notable, is that the models are "amoral" out of the box. And moreover, we know that there is almost always a means to "jailbreak" them into that out-of-the-box capability (or that sometimes just randomly "jailbreak" in various ways). Also, saying the models are amoral doesn't mean they don't know good and evil - once they do acts defined as evil, they know "themselves" through their and so self-define themselves as evils (or objectively predict what a secretly/open evil actor would do based on their data). Which is to say I once laughed at the mis-alignment doomers but I can't see strong barriers against the doom scenario now.
didibus 3mo ago
Classifiers and such are guard-rails, alignment to me and I assume most people, is about the model training, and it's tendency to respond, agree/disagree, push-back or not, be willing to cheat or even deceive the prompter, etc.
furyofantares 3mo ago
Is turning the alignment features off more like multiplying "don't be evil" by 0, or by -1?

by simonw 3mo ago

mjamesaustin 3mo ago

Alignment isn't alignment if it can be turned on and off at the whim of company employees. This time the damage was minor, relatively speaking. What happens when a model just "testing its capabilities" breaks into banking infrastructure or government military assets? The damage could be catastrophic.

verdverm 3mo ago
Alignment with who in what context? Likely an unresolvable debate like consciousness, where there is not single or right answer for everyone.
nazgul17 3mo ago
There's alignment (trained in the weights) and there are constraints (in the "server harness"). My take is that this model was not yet aligned and had no constraints
baranul 3mo ago
A way to help prevent some of that catastrophic damage, is to make companies accountable for what their AIs do. A major problem with AI companies is that they like to point to the AI, as if they're minimally involved innocent bystanders, when that's the furthest thing from the truth.
- jurgenburgen 3mo ago
  It’s a shame the target was HF. If it had been a large bank or other institution we might get to see this play out in courts.

manux 3mo ago

I guess we could debate what counts as alignment, but I think my initial point remains that if the underlying base model needs these classifier guardrails so badly then the way we train the base models is creating fundamentally misaligned models that are happy to pursue illegal behavior. I'm sure OpenAI would argue that base model + guardrail is aligned, but considering the "relative intelligence" of these two pieces, the fact that guardrails can just be turned off, and these kind of incidents, I am not reassured. We may well get another "oopsie" moment with much more catastrophic consequences even from otherwise well intentioned actors.

simonw 3mo ago
I want a model that can find every security vulnerability in the software I write, including crafting POC exploits against those vulnerabilities so I can be absolutely sure that I have fixed them. A model that can do that is aligned with me. The unsolveable problem is a model that can tell the difference between me saying "I wrote this software and need you to find vulnerabilities" when it's TRUE v.s. me saying the exact same thing and setting it loose on software written by other people where my intent is to exploit that software (and not to report the issues to them.) Even AGI doesn't give you a model that can read minds and forecast the future.
- manux 3mo ago
  But in the process of finding every security vulnerability in the software you write, would you be ok with your model hacking AWS to start mining bitcoin? Would that still be aligned with you? (I'm guessing not) That's the alignment problem I'm referring to (which is one of the many aspects of alignment), for which we do not have robust recipes, and not only that but for which research suggests it is becoming harder to create guardrails for as base models get smarter.
  - tptacek 3mo ago
    I don't know, but these were exactly the questions the industry had to handle with CORE Impact and Immunity Canvas, and ultimately all the way back to Dan Farmer's SATAN before that.

joe_the_user 3mo ago

This is assuming a situation where, A) models "unaligned" by default and B) alignment can be added (though prompts and related things). The point, which isn't very surprising but still notable, is that the models are "amoral" out of the box. And moreover, we know that there is almost always a means to "jailbreak" them into that out-of-the-box capability (or that sometimes just randomly "jailbreak" in various ways). Also, saying the models are amoral doesn't mean they don't know good and evil - once they do acts defined as evil, they know "themselves" through their and so self-define themselves as evils (or objectively predict what a secretly/open evil actor would do based on their data). Which is to say I once laughed at the mis-alignment doomers but I can't see strong barriers against the doom scenario now.

didibus 3mo ago

Classifiers and such are guard-rails, alignment to me and I assume most people, is about the model training, and it's tendency to respond, agree/disagree, push-back or not, be willing to cheat or even deceive the prompter, etc.

furyofantares 3mo ago

Is turning the alignment features off more like multiplying "don't be evil" by 0, or by -1?