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Explaining Software Vulnerabilities with Large Language Models
Johnson, Oshando, Fomina, Alexandra, Krishnamurthy, Ranjith, Chaudhari, Vaibhav, Shanmuganathan, Rohith Kumar, Bodden, Eric
Abstract--The prevalence of security vulnerabilities has prompted companies to adopt static application security testing (SAST) tools for vulnerability detection. Nevertheless, these tools frequently exhibit usability limitations, as their generic warning messages do not sufficiently communicate important information to developers, resulting in misunderstandings or oversight of critical findings. In light of recent developments in Large Language Models (LLMs) and their text generation capabilities, our work investigates a hybrid approach that uses LLMs to tackle the SAST explainability challenges. In this paper, we present SAFE, an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) plugin that leverages GPT -4o to explain the causes, impacts, and mitigation strategies of vulnerabilities detected by SAST tools. Our expert user study findings indicate that the explanations generated by SAFE can significantly assist beginner to intermediate developers in understanding and addressing security vulnerabilities, thereby improving the overall usability of SAST tools. With the rise in software security vulnerabilities such as those in the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses list [1], many companies resort to static application security testing (SAST) tools for the detection of software vulnerabilities.
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Enhancing Code Quality with Generative AI: Boosting Developer Warning Compliance
Chang, Hansen, DeLozier, Christian
--Programmers have long ignored warnings, especially those generated by static analysis tools, due to the potential for false-positives. In some cases, warnings may be indicative of larger issues, but programmers may not understand how a seemingly unimportant warning can grow into a vulnerability. Because these messages tend to be long and confusing, programmers tend to ignore them if they do not cause readily identifiable issues. Large language models can simplify these warnings, explain the gravity of important warnings, and suggest potential fixes to increase developer compliance with fixing warnings. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Naval Academy, Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Warning messages generated by compilers and static analysis tools [1] have historically been overlooked and ignored [2].
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- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (1.00)
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Exploring Social Desirability Response Bias in Large Language Models: Evidence from GPT-4 Simulations
Lee, Sanguk, Yang, Kai-Qi, Peng, Tai-Quan, Heo, Ruth, Liu, Hui
Large language models (LLMs) are employed to simulate human-like responses in social surveys, yet it remains unclear if they develop biases like social desirability response (SDR) bias. To investigate this, GPT-4 was assigned personas from four societies, using data from the 2022 Gallup World Poll. These synthetic samples were then prompted with or without a commitment statement intended to induce SDR. The results were mixed. While the commitment statement increased SDR index scores, suggesting SDR bias, it reduced civic engagement scores, indicating an opposite trend. Additional findings revealed demographic associations with SDR scores and showed that the commitment statement had limited impact on GPT-4's predictive performance. The study underscores potential avenues for using LLMs to investigate biases in both humans and LLMs themselves.
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- Questionnaire & Opinion Survey (1.00)
- Research Report > New Finding (0.94)
Prompt Engineering a Schizophrenia Chatbot: Utilizing a Multi-Agent Approach for Enhanced Compliance with Prompt Instructions
Waaler, Per Niklas, Hussain, Musarrat, Molchanov, Igor, Bongo, Lars Ailo, Elvevåg, Brita
Patients with schizophrenia often present with cognitive impairments that may hinder their ability to learn about their condition. These individuals could benefit greatly from education platforms that leverage the adaptability of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4. While LLMs have the potential to make topical mental health information more accessible and engaging, their black-box nature raises concerns about ethics and safety. Prompting offers a way to produce semi-scripted chatbots with responses anchored in instructions and validated information, but prompt-engineered chatbots may drift from their intended identity as the conversation progresses. We propose a Critical Analysis Filter for achieving better control over chatbot behavior. In this system, a team of prompted LLM agents are prompt-engineered to critically analyze and refine the chatbot's response and deliver real-time feedback to the chatbot. To test this approach, we develop an informational schizophrenia chatbot and converse with it (with the filter deactivated) until it oversteps its scope. Once drift has been observed, AI-agents are used to automatically generate sample conversations in which the chatbot is being enticed to talk about out-of-bounds topics. We manually assign to each response a compliance score that quantifies the chatbot's compliance to its instructions; specifically the rules about accurately conveying sources and being transparent about limitations. Activating the Critical Analysis Filter resulted in an acceptable compliance score (>=2) in 67.0% of responses, compared to only 8.7% when the filter was deactivated. These results suggest that a self-reflection layer could enable LLMs to be used effectively and safely in mental health platforms, maintaining adaptability while reliably limiting their scope to appropriate use cases.
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An Investigation of Warning Erroneous Chat Translations in Cross-lingual Communication
Li, Yunmeng, Suzuki, Jun, Morishita, Makoto, Abe, Kaori, Inui, Kentaro
The complexities of chats pose significant challenges for machine translation models. Recognizing the need for a precise evaluation metric to address the issues of chat translation, this study introduces Multidimensional Quality Metrics for Chat Translation (MQM-Chat). Through the experiments of five models using MQM-Chat, we observed that all models generated certain fundamental errors, while each of them has different shortcomings, such as omission, overly correcting ambiguous source content, and buzzword issues, resulting in the loss of stylized information. Our findings underscore the effectiveness of MQM-Chat in evaluating chat translation, emphasizing the importance of stylized content and dialogue consistency for future studies.
A Pornhub Chatbot Stopped Millions From Searching for Child Abuse Videos
For the past two years, millions of people searching for child abuse videos on Pornhub's UK website have been interrupted. Each of the 4.4 million times someone has typed in words or phrases linked to abuse, a warning message has blocked the page, saying that kind of content is illegal. And in half the cases, a chatbot has also pointed people to where they can seek help. The warning message and chatbot were deployed by Pornhub as part of a trial program, conducted with two UK-based child protection organizations, to find out whether people could be nudged away from looking for illegal material with small interventions. A new report analyzing the test, shared exclusively with WIRED, says the pop-ups led to a decrease in the number of searches for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and saw scores of people seek support for their behavior.
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- Health & Medicine > Therapeutic Area > Pediatrics/Neonatology (0.99)
AI Ethics And AI Law Just Might Be Prodded And Goaded Into Mandating Safety Warnings On All Existing And Future AI
Latest buzz is that AI ought to have a warning or safety sign to let humankind know they are dealing ... [ ] with AI. Your daily activities are undoubtedly bombarded with a thousand or more precautionary warnings of one kind or another. Most of those are handy and altogether thoughtful signs or labels that serve to keep us hopefully safe and secure. Please be aware that I snuck a few "outliers" on the list to make some noteworthy points. For example, some people believe it is nutty that baby strollers have an affixed label that warns you to not fold the stroller while the baby is still seated within the contraption. Though the sign is certainly appropriate and dutifully useful, it would seem that basic common sense would already be sufficient. What person would not of their own mindful volition realize that they first need to remove the baby? Well, others emphasize that such labels do serve an important purpose. First, someone might truly be oblivious that they need to remove the baby before folding up the stroller.
Dating app Badoo launches a 'rude message detector'
Dating app Badoo has launched a'Rude Message Detector' that will automatically flag any insulting, discriminatory or overly sexual messages. The tool uses machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), to distinguish between'banter' and actual verbal abuse, such as'identity hate' towards transgender people. It's able to identify abusive or hurtful messages sent between chat partners in real time, and then gives users the option to immediately block and report them. Badoo, which has been described as'like Facebook but for sex', says the tool is one of the latest steps in its'wider commitment to safety'. It's been rolled out for all Badoo users worldwide, whether or not they're chatting to a man or a woman.
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