The Download: LLM confessions, and tapping into geothermal hot spots

OpenAI is testing a new way to expose the complicated processes at work inside large language models. Researchers at the company can make an LLM produce what they call a confession, in which the model explains how it carried out a task and (most of the time) own up to any bad behavior. Figuring out why large language models do what they do--and in particular why they sometimes appear to lie, cheat, and deceive--is one of the hottest topics in AI right now. If this multitrillion-dollar technology is to be deployed as widely as its makers hope it will be, it must be made more trustworthy. OpenAI sees confessions as one step toward that goal. Sometimes geothermal hot spots are obvious, marked by geysers and hot springs on Earth's surface.