Law
A Closer Look at Machine Unlearning for Large Language Models
Yuan, Xiaojian, Pang, Tianyu, Du, Chao, Chen, Kejiang, Zhang, Weiming, Lin, Min
Due to the high cost of retraining from scratch, researchers attempt to employ machine unlearning to remove specific content from LLMs while preserving the overall performance. In this paper, we discuss several issues in machine unlearning for LLMs and provide our insights on possible approaches. To address the issue of inadequate evaluation of model outputs after unlearning, we introduce three additional metrics to evaluate token diversity, sentence semantics, and factual correctness. We then categorize unlearning methods into untargeted and targeted, and discuss their issues respectively. Specifically, the behavior that untargeted unlearning attempts to approximate is unpredictable and may involve hallucinations, and existing regularization is insufficient for targeted unlearning. To alleviate these issues, we propose using the objective of maximizing entropy (ME) for untargeted unlearning and incorporate answer preservation (AP) loss as regularization for targeted unlearning. Experimental results across three scenarios, i.e., fictitious unlearning, continual unlearning, and real-world unlearning, demonstrate the effectiveness of our approaches. In recent years, large language models (LLMs) have undergone rapid development, demonstrating impressive capabilities across a wide range of applications, from natural language processing to complex problem-solving. These concerns are particularly relevant within legal and regulatory frameworks, such as the Right to be Forgotten (Dang, 2021), which aims to empower individuals to have unauthorized data erased from digital records. Addressing these issues is crucial for ensuring the responsible deployment of LLMs in real-world applications. Due to the high cost of retraining LLMs, researchers have explored machine unlearning techniques, namely LLM unlearning (Cao & Yang, 2015; Bourtoule et al., 2021; Yao et al., 2023). The typical paradigm involves fine-tuning the target LLM on a specified set, known as the forget set, to obtain an unlearned model. As described in (Maini et al., 2024; Jin et al., 2024), the unlearned model should meet two primary goals: 1) it should not reveal any information contained in the forget set, and 2) it should maintain performance on the neighbor set, which has a distribution similar to the forget set but is not the target of unlearning, as well as on other tasks with general knowledge. While the first goal is generally easier to achieve, the main challenge lies in meeting the second goal (Liu et al., 2024b; Maini et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2024a; Ji et al., 2024; Shi et al., 2024a; Wang et al., 2024c). In this paper, we have a closer look at machine unlearning for LLMs. We note that most prior studies (Maini et al., 2024; Ji et al., 2024; Jia et al., 2024; Jin et al., 2024; Shi et al., 2024a) primarily rely on ROUGE (Lin, 2004) as the sole metric for evaluating the output of unlearned models.
Comprehensive Monitoring of Air Pollution Hotspots Using Sparse Sensor Networks
Bhardwaj, Ankit, Balashankar, Ananth, Iyer, Shiva, Soans, Nita, Sudarshan, Anant, Pande, Rohini, Subramanian, Lakshminarayanan
Urban air pollution hotspots pose significant health risks, yet their detection and analysis remain limited by the sparsity of public sensor networks. This paper addresses this challenge by combining predictive modeling and mechanistic approaches to comprehensively monitor pollution hotspots. We enhanced New Delhi's existing sensor network with 28 low-cost sensors, collecting PM2.5 data over 30 months from May 1, 2018, to Nov 1, 2020. Applying established definitions of hotspots to this data, we found the existence of additional 189 hidden hotspots apart from confirming 660 hotspots detected by the public network. Using predictive techniques like Space-Time Kriging, we identified hidden hotspots with 95% precision and 88% recall with 50% sensor failure rate, and with 98% precision and 95% recall with 50% missing sensors. The projected results of our predictive models were further compiled into policy recommendations for public authorities. Additionally, we developed a Gaussian Plume Dispersion Model to understand the mechanistic underpinnings of hotspot formation, incorporating an emissions inventory derived from local sources. Our mechanistic model is able to explain 65% of observed transient hotspots. Our findings underscore the importance of integrating data-driven predictive models with physics-based mechanistic models for scalable and robust air pollution management in resource-constrained settings.
The US Patent and Trademark Office Banned Staff From Using Generative AI
The US Patent and Trademark Office banned the use of generative artificial intelligence for any purpose last year, citing security concerns with the technology as well as the propensity of some tools to exhibit "bias, unpredictability, and malicious behavior," according to an April 2023 internal guidance memo obtained by WIRED through a public records request. Jamie Holcombe, the chief information officer of the USPTO, wrote that the office is "committed to pursuing innovation within our agency" but are still "working to bring these capabilities to the office in a responsible way." Paul Fucito, press secretary for the USPTO, clarified to WIRED that employees can use "state-of-the-art generative AI models" at work--but only inside the agency's internal testing environment. "Innovators from across the USPTO are now using the AI Lab to better understand generative AI's capabilities and limitations and to prototype AI-powered solutions to critical business needs," Fucito wrote in an email. Outside of the testing environment, USPTO staff are barred from relying on AI programs like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude for work tasks.
The Moral Mind(s) of Large Language Models
As large language models (LLMs) become integrated to decision-making across various sectors, a key question arises: do they exhibit an emergent "moral mind" - a consistent set of moral principles guiding their ethical judgments - and is this reasoning uniform or diverse across models? To investigate this, we presented about forty different models from the main providers with a large array of structured ethical scenarios, creating one of the largest datasets of its kind. Our rationality tests revealed that at least one model from each provider demonstrated behavior consistent with stable moral principles, effectively acting as approximately optimizing a utility function encoding ethical reasoning. We identified these utility functions and observed a notable clustering of models around neutral ethical stances. To investigate variability, we introduced a novel non-parametric permutation approach, revealing that the most rational models shared 59% to 76% of their ethical reasoning patterns. Despite this shared foundation, differences emerged: roughly half displayed greater moral adaptability, bridging diverse perspectives, while the remainder adhered to more rigid ethical structures.
BetterBench: Assessing AI Benchmarks, Uncovering Issues, and Establishing Best Practices
Reuel, Anka, Hardy, Amelia, Smith, Chandler, Lamparth, Max, Hardy, Malcolm, Kochenderfer, Mykel J.
AI models are increasingly prevalent in high-stakes environments, necessitating thorough assessment of their capabilities and risks. Benchmarks are popular for measuring these attributes and for comparing model performance, tracking progress, and identifying weaknesses in foundation and non-foundation models. They can inform model selection for downstream tasks and influence policy initiatives. However, not all benchmarks are the same: their quality depends on their design and usability. In this paper, we develop an assessment framework considering 46 best practices across an AI benchmark's lifecycle and evaluate 24 AI benchmarks against it. We find that there exist large quality differences and that commonly used benchmarks suffer from significant issues. We further find that most benchmarks do not report statistical significance of their results nor allow for their results to be easily replicated. To support benchmark developers in aligning with best practices, we provide a checklist for minimum quality assurance based on our assessment. We also develop a living repository of benchmark assessments to support benchmark comparability, accessible at betterbench.stanford.edu.
DLBacktrace: A Model Agnostic Explainability for any Deep Learning Models
Sankarapu, Vinay Kumar, Chitroda, Chintan, Rathore, Yashwardhan, Singh, Neeraj Kumar, Seth, Pratinav
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has led to increasingly sophisticated deep learning models, which frequently operate as opaque 'black boxes' with limited transparency in their decision-making processes. This lack of interpretability presents considerable challenges, especially in high-stakes applications where understanding the rationale behind a model's outputs is as essential as the outputs themselves. This study addresses the pressing need for interpretability in AI systems, emphasizing its role in fostering trust, ensuring accountability, and promoting responsible deployment in mission-critical fields. To address the interpretability challenge in deep learning, we introduce DLBacktrace, an innovative technique developed by the AryaXAI team to illuminate model decisions across a wide array of domains, including simple Multi Layer Perceptron (MLPs), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Large Language Models (LLMs), Computer Vision Models, and more. We provide a comprehensive overview of the DLBacktrace algorithm and present benchmarking results, comparing its performance against established interpretability methods, such as SHAP, LIME, GradCAM, Integrated Gradients, SmoothGrad, and Attention Rollout, using diverse task-based metrics. The proposed DLBacktrace technique is compatible with various model architectures built in PyTorch and TensorFlow, supporting models like Llama 3.2, other NLP architectures such as BERT and LSTMs, computer vision models like ResNet and U-Net, as well as custom deep neural network (DNN) models for tabular data. This flexibility underscores DLBacktrace's adaptability and effectiveness in enhancing model transparency across a broad spectrum of applications. The library is open-sourced and available at https://github.com/AryaXAI/DLBacktrace .
Transforming Triple-Entry Accounting with Machine Learning: A Path to Enhanced Transparency Through Analytics
Weinberg, Abraham Itzhak, Faccia, Alessio
Triple Entry (TE) is an accounting method that utilizes three accounts or 'entries' to record each transaction, rather than the conventional double-entry bookkeeping system. Existing studies have found that TE accounting, with its additional layer of verification and disclosure of inter-organizational relationships, could help improve transparency in complex financial and supply chain transactions such as blockchain. Machine learning (ML) presents a promising avenue to augment the transparency advantages of TE accounting. By automating some of the data collection and analysis needed for TE bookkeeping, ML techniques have the potential to make this more transparent accounting method scalable for large organizations with complex international supply chains, further enhancing the visibility and trustworthiness of financial reporting. By leveraging ML algorithms, anomalies within distributed ledger data can be swiftly identified, flagging potential instances of fraud or errors. Furthermore, by delving into transaction relationships over time, ML can untangle intricate webs of transactions, shedding light on obscured dealings and adding an investigative dimension. This paper aims to demonstrate the interaction between TE and ML and how they can leverage transparency levels.
RedPajama: an Open Dataset for Training Large Language Models
Weber, Maurice, Fu, Daniel, Anthony, Quentin, Oren, Yonatan, Adams, Shane, Alexandrov, Anton, Lyu, Xiaozhong, Nguyen, Huu, Yao, Xiaozhe, Adams, Virginia, Athiwaratkun, Ben, Chalamala, Rahul, Chen, Kezhen, Ryabinin, Max, Dao, Tri, Liang, Percy, Ré, Christopher, Rish, Irina, Zhang, Ce
Large language models are increasingly becoming a cornerstone technology in artificial intelligence, the sciences, and society as a whole, yet the optimal strategies for dataset composition and filtering remain largely elusive. Many of the top-performing models lack transparency in their dataset curation and model development processes, posing an obstacle to the development of fully open language models. In this paper, we identify three core data-related challenges that must be addressed to advance open-source language models. These include (1) transparency in model development, including the data curation process, (2) access to large quantities of high-quality data, and (3) availability of artifacts and metadata for dataset curation and analysis. To address these challenges, we release RedPajama-V1, an open reproduction of the LLaMA training dataset. In addition, we release RedPajama-V2, a massive web-only dataset consisting of raw, unfiltered text data together with quality signals and metadata. Together, the RedPajama datasets comprise over 100 trillion tokens spanning multiple domains and with their quality signals facilitate the filtering of data, aiming to inspire the development of numerous new datasets. To date, these datasets have already been used in the training of strong language models used in production, such as Snowflake Arctic, Salesforce's XGen and AI2's OLMo. To provide insight into the quality of RedPajama, we present a series of analyses and ablation studies with decoder-only language models with up to 1.6B parameters. Our findings demonstrate how quality signals for web data can be effectively leveraged to curate high-quality subsets of the dataset, underscoring the potential of RedPajama to advance the development of transparent and high-performing language models at scale.
Building Trust: Foundations of Security, Safety and Transparency in AI
Sidhpurwala, Huzaifa, Mollett, Garth, Fox, Emily, Bestavros, Mark, Chen, Huamin
This p aper explore s the rapidly evolving ecosystem of publicly available AI models, and their potential implications on the s ecurit y and s afet y lands cape. A s AI models become increasingly prevalent, understanding their potential risks and vulnerabilitie s is crucial. We review the current s ecurit y and s afet y s cenarios while highlighting challenge s such as tracking issue s, remediation, and the app arent abs ence of AI model lifecycle and ownership proce ss e s. Comprehensive strategie s to enhance s ecurit y and s afet y for both model developers and end-us ers are propos ed. This p aper aims to provide s ome of the foundational piece s for more standardized s ecurit y, s afet y, and transp arency in the development and operation of AI models and the larger open ecosystems and communitie s forming around them. Generative AI, a branch of artificial intelligence focus ed on AI produc tion of content such as text, image s and video, has s een significant advancement s since the introduc tion of generative advers arial net works (GANs) in 2014 (Goodfellow et al., 2014), which improved data generation but faced issue s like training instabilit y. The development of transformers and s elf at tention mechanisms in 2017 (Vaswani et al., 2017) facilitated further improvement s in natural language proce ssing, leading to large language models (LLMs) like GPT (Radford et al., 2018) with highly advanced text generation cap abilitie s. Dif fusion models (S ohl-Dickstein et al., 2015) have als o s een rapid advancement in image and video generation. This rapid advancement in technology cap abilit y has been matched by an equally rapid uptake in adoption. A s with any new technology, it is worth noting that the industr y is still identif ying new and valuable us e s for AI and the s e market predic tions may fluc tuate as us e cas e s are te sted in real world environment s with real world problems. For the purpos e of clarit y we shall be using the term public model, for a model which is publicly available for download and us e. LLMs are the next evolution of data s cience, a field focus ed on math and data. Unlike traditional systems and applications which rely on logic and programming for a specified outcome, large language model development t ypically consist s of architec ture re s earch and de sign, which is then coded.
Multilingual Large Language Models: A Systematic Survey
Zhu, Shaolin, Supryadi, null, Xu, Shaoyang, Sun, Haoran, Pan, Leiyu, Cui, Menglong, Du, Jiangcun, Jin, Renren, Branco, António, Xiong, Deyi
This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the latest research on multilingual large language models (MLLMs). MLLMs not only are able to understand and generate language across linguistic boundaries, but also represent an important advancement in artificial intelligence. We first discuss the architecture and pre-training objectives of MLLMs, highlighting the key components and methodologies that contribute to their multilingual capabilities. We then discuss the construction of multilingual pre-training and alignment datasets, underscoring the importance of data quality and diversity in enhancing MLLM performance. An important focus of this survey is on the evaluation of MLLMs. We present a detailed taxonomy and roadmap covering the assessment of MLLMs' cross-lingual knowledge, reasoning, alignment with human values, safety, interpretability and specialized applications. Specifically, we extensively discuss multilingual evaluation benchmarks and datasets, and explore the use of LLMs themselves as multilingual evaluators. To enhance MLLMs from black to white boxes, we also address the interpretability of multilingual capabilities, cross-lingual transfer and language bias within these models. Finally, we provide a comprehensive review of real-world applications of MLLMs across diverse domains, including biology, medicine, computer science, mathematics and law. We showcase how these models have driven innovation and improvements in these specialized fields while also highlighting the challenges and opportunities in deploying MLLMs within diverse language communities and application scenarios. We listed the paper related in this survey and publicly available at https://github.com/tjunlp-lab/Awesome-Multilingual-LLMs-Papers.