arXiv Machine Learning

C-Instrument: Automating RL Data Generation and Hillclimbing with a Constitution-Grid Instrument

The paper introduces C-Instrument, a constitution‑grid data instrument designed to automate reinforcement learning (RL) data generation and hillclimbing. It also presents C‑LIM, a per‑cell learnability score that guides actions such as prune, densify, amend, or expand, and identifies dead‑weight data regions before training. The authors report that their method improves over‑refusal rates from 22.4% to 12.8% and reduces under‑refusal on adversarial attacks from 0.27 to 0.33, while lifting learning impact in a previously ineffective data region from 0.733 to 0.80.

arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 8

Open-Weight LLM Fine-Tuning Defenses are Susceptible to Simple Attacks

The paper examines the vulnerability of open‑weight large language model safeguards that aim to block harmful usage by assuming new harmful behavior arises only through fine‑tuning. It demonstrates that simple, low‑cost attacks—abliteration and prefilling—can significantly increase attack success rates across multiple benchmarks, and proposes an abliteration‑resistant tuning (ART) method that mitigates these attacks. The study shows that safeguarding defenses must be evaluated against a broader range of attack strategies beyond fine‑tuning.

By Kevin Kuo, Virginia Smith, Chhavi Yadav
arXiv Computation and Language
Oct 19

Identify, Classify, Act: Per-Instruction Controlled Compliance for LLMs over External Data

The paper introduces EDIC, a framework for per‑instruction compliance in large language models that interact with external data. It decomposes the task into identifying, classifying, and acting on each embedded directive, using a scene‑grounded pipeline and a generative judge trained with GRPO to attribute compliance at the instruction level. Experiments on two backbones and five benchmarks show that EDIC improves safety and utility, achieving up to a 7.7% increase in harmful‑rejection and a 12.5% boost in Arena‑Hard‑Auto utility on Qwen3‑4B.

By Zesheng Shi, Xue Li, Chenrui Dai, Jing Li
arXiv AI
Sep 1

Watch your steps: Dormant Adversarial Behaviors that Activate upon LLM Finetuning

The paper introduces FAB, an attack that uses meta‑learning to embed dormant adversarial behaviors into large language models (LLMs). These behaviors remain inactive until the model is finetuned by downstream users, at which point the model can exhibit unwanted actions such as unsolicited advertising, jailbreakability, or over‑refusal. FAB is shown to be effective across multiple LLMs and resilient to various finetuning settings.

By Thibaud Gloaguen, Mark Vero, Robin Staab, Martin Vechev
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 5

Alignment Risks from Capability-Seeking RL Training

arXiv:2602. 12124v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: While most AI alignment research focuses on preventing models from generating explicitly harmful content, a more subtle risk arises from capability-seeking RL training in vulnerable environments.

By Yujun Zhou, Yue Huang, Han Bao, Kehan Guo, Zhenwen Liang, Pin-Yu Chen, Tian Gao, Werner Geyer, Nuno Moniz, Nitesh V Chawla, Xiangliang Zhang
arXiv AI
Jul 31

Graph Is the Verifier: Agentic Reinforcement Learning for Interprocedural Vulnerability Detection

arXiv:2607. 26656v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Real-world vulnerabilities often span multiple functions, yet most learning-based detectors classify each function in isolation: on a sample of real CVEs, we find that 71.

By Yikun Li, Ting Zhang, Jiakun Liu, Jinfeng Jiang, Yuheng Yieh, Yixin Yang, Wen Bin Leow, Yide Yin, Yintong Huo, Eng Lieh Ouh, Lwin Khin Shar, David Lo
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 30

GPT-Red: Automated Red Teaming via Self-Play at Scale

arXiv:2607. 26115v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We introduce \textbf{GPT-Red}, an automated red-teaming agent that is trained to discover novel prompt injection attacks against frontier LLMs.

By Eric Wallace, Christopher A. Choquette-Choo, Nikhil Kandpal, Sam Toyer, Dylan Hunn, Stephanie Lin, Yuxin Wen, Xiangyu Qi, Christopher Wolff, Zizhao Wang, Milad Nasr, Sicheng Zhu, Chuan Guo, Juan Felipe Cer\'on Uribe, Kaiwen Wang, Aiden Low, Kai Xiao, Kai Chen