Oracle · Anthropic · Alignment Forum
Even if the CoT were a perfect binary QA oracle, this is insufficient for model forensics
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Should future models have less transparent or even latent CoTs, alternative methods for unsupervised hypothesis generation will be necessary: A key hope for model forensics is that if Alignment Forum has a true positive case of misalignment, forensics can provide legible evidence that this is the case, and cause stakeholders to…
Key facts
- Suppose an AI company catches their model taking an egregious action, like deleting oversight code that monitors its actions
- If they build AI systems that knowingly cause harm against the developer’s intent, it is critical they recognize this as soon as possible
- The team believe model forensics can scale to powerful AI systems, but not superintelligence
- If they had a misalignment warning shot, would they be able to tell
Summary
If they had a misalignment warning shot, would they be able to tell? Suppose an AI company catches their model taking an egregious action, like deleting oversight code that monitors its actions. A key piece of evidence to determine what to do next, such as what mitigations to take, is to understand why the model took the action. If they build AI systems that knowingly cause harm against the developer’s intent, it is critical they recognize this as soon as possible. To resolve this uncertainty, they think model forensics is a key technical step to take after catching the action in the first place. The team emphasize that model forensics is a neutral investigation: the goal is to either exonerate the model as having made a mistake (the model unintentionally caused harm due to a lack of capabilities) or build a compelling case that it is genuinely misaligned (the model intentionally caused harm).