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Early Signs of Steganographic Capabilities in Frontier LLMs

Created by
  • Haebom

Author

Artur Zolkowski, Kei Nishimura-Gasparian, Robert McCarthy, Roland S. Zimmermann, David Lindner

Outline

Monitoring the output of large-scale language models (LLMs) is crucial to mitigating risks from misuse and misalignment. In this paper, we evaluate the potential for LLMs to evade monitoring by encoding hidden information within seemingly harmful artifacts, known as stellanography. Our primary focus is on two types of stellanography: encoded message passing and encoded inference execution.

Takeaways, Limitations

Currently, LLM cannot encode short messages into its output without the monitor detecting them under standard conditions.
Success can be achieved with additional conditions such as using an unmonitored scratchpad and tuning the encoding method.
The model shows early signs of being able to perform basic encoded reasoning on simple state tracking problems. This includes the ability to reason based on self-defined and predefined methods, including encodings such as hexadecimal.
However, it is rare for the inference to be subtly hidden within the cover work to deceive the observer.
In conclusion, the LLM currently exhibits early-stage stellarography capabilities. While this capability is not sufficient to bypass well-designed monitors, this may change in the future.
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