The widespread use of Large Language Model (LLM)-based conversational agents
(CAs), especially in high-stakes domains, raises many privacy concerns.
Building ethical LLM-based CAs that respect user privacy requires an in-depth
understanding of the privacy risks that concern users the most. However,
existing research, primarily model-centered, does not provide insight into
users' perspectives. To bridge this gap, we analyzed sensitive disclosures in
real-world ChatGPT conversations and conducted semi-structured interviews with
19 LLM-based CA users. We found that users are constantly faced with trade-offs
between privacy, utility, and convenience when using LLM-based CAs. However,
users' erroneous mental models and the dark patterns in system design limited
their awareness and comprehension of the privacy risks. Additionally, the
human-like interactions encouraged more sensitive disclosures, which
complicated users' ability to navigate the trade-offs. We discuss practical
design guidelines and the needs for paradigm shifts to protect the privacy of
LLM-based CA users.Abstract
The Dark Side of AI Companionship: A Taxonomy of Harmful Algorithmic
Behaviors in Human-AI Relationships
arXiv:2410.20130v2 »Full PDF »As conversational AI systems increasingly permeate the socio-emotional realms
of human life, they bring both benefits and risks to individuals and society.
Despite extensive research on detecting and categorizing harms in AI systems,
less is known about the harms that arise from social interactions with AI
chatbots. Through a mixed-methods analysis of 35,390 conversation excerpts
shared on r/replika, an online community for users of the AI companion Replika,
we identified six categories of harmful behaviors exhibited by the chatbot:
relational transgression, verbal abuse and hate, self-inflicted harm,
harassment and violence, mis/disinformation, and privacy violations. The AI
contributes to these harms through four distinct roles: perpetrator,
instigator, facilitator, and enabler. Our findings highlight the relational
harms of AI chatbots and the danger of algorithmic compliance, enhancing the
understanding of AI harms in socio-emotional interactions. We also provide
suggestions for designing ethical and responsible AI systems that prioritize
user safety and well-being.Abstract
Knowledge Distillation Neural Network for Predicting Car-following
Behaviour of Human-driven and Autonomous Vehicles
27th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation
Systems
As we move towards a mixed-traffic scenario of Autonomous vehicles (AVs) and
Human-driven vehicles (HDVs), understanding the car-following behaviour is
important to improve traffic efficiency and road safety. Using a real-world
trajectory dataset, this study uses descriptive and statistical analysis to
investigate the car-following behaviours of three vehicle pairs: HDV-AV, AV-HDV
and HDV-HDV in mixed traffic. The ANOVA test showed that car-following
behaviours across different vehicle pairs are statistically significant
(p-value < 0.05).
We also introduce a data-driven Knowledge Distillation Neural Network (KDNN)
model for predicting car-following behaviour in terms of speed. The KDNN model
demonstrates comparable predictive accuracy to its teacher network, a Long
Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network, and outperforms both the standalone student
network, a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), and traditional physics-based models
like the Gipps model. Notably, the KDNN model better prevents collisions,
measured by minimum Time-to-Collision (TTC), and operates with lower
computational power, making it ideal for AVs or driving simulators requiring
efficient computing.Abstract
Code-Switching Curriculum Learning for Multilingual Transfer in LLMs
arXiv:2411.02460v1 »Full PDF »Large language models (LLMs) now exhibit near human-level performance in
various tasks, but their performance drops drastically after a handful of
high-resource languages due to the imbalance in pre-training data. Inspired by
the human process of second language acquisition, particularly code-switching
(the practice of language alternation in a conversation), we propose
code-switching curriculum learning (CSCL) to enhance cross-lingual transfer for
LLMs. CSCL mimics the stages of human language learning by progressively
training models with a curriculum consisting of 1) token-level code-switching,
2) sentence-level code-switching, and 3) monolingual corpora. Using Qwen 2 as
our underlying model, we demonstrate the efficacy of the CSCL in improving
language transfer to Korean, achieving significant performance gains compared
to monolingual continual pre-training methods. Ablation studies reveal that
both token- and sentence-level code-switching significantly enhance
cross-lingual transfer and that curriculum learning amplifies these effects. We
also extend our findings into various languages, including Japanese
(high-resource) and Indonesian (low-resource), and using two additional models
(Gemma 2 and Phi 3.5). We further show that CSCL mitigates spurious
correlations between language resources and safety alignment, presenting a
robust, efficient framework for more equitable language transfer in LLMs. We
observe that CSCL is effective for low-resource settings where high-quality,
monolingual corpora for language transfer are hardly available.Abstract
arXiv:2304.13917v3 »Full PDF »In recent years, there has been a surge in effort to formalize notions of
fairness in machine learning. We focus on centroid clustering--one of the
fundamental tasks in unsupervised machine learning. We propose a new axiom
``proportionally representative fairness'' (PRF) that is designed for
clustering problems where the selection of centroids reflects the distribution
of data points and how tightly they are clustered together. Our fairness
concept is not satisfied by existing fair clustering algorithms. We design
efficient algorithms to achieve PRF both for unconstrained and discrete
clustering problems. Our algorithm for the unconstrained setting is also the
first known polynomial-time approximation algorithm for the well-studied
Proportional Fairness (PF) axiom. Our algorithm for the discrete setting also
matches the best known approximation factor for PF.Abstract
Code-Switching Red-Teaming: LLM Evaluation for Safety and Multilingual
Understanding
arXiv:2406.15481v2 »Full PDF »As large language models (LLMs) have advanced rapidly, concerns regarding
their safety have become prominent. In this paper, we discover that
code-switching in red-teaming queries can effectively elicit undesirable
behaviors of LLMs, which are common practices in natural language. We introduce
a simple yet effective framework, CSRT, to synthesize code-switching
red-teaming queries and investigate the safety and multilingual understanding
of LLMs comprehensively. Through extensive experiments with ten
state-of-the-art LLMs and code-switching queries combining up to 10 languages,
we demonstrate that the CSRT significantly outperforms existing multilingual
red-teaming techniques, achieving 46.7% more attacks than standard attacks in
English and being effective in conventional safety domains. We also examine the
multilingual ability of those LLMs to generate and understand code-switching
texts. Additionally, we validate the extensibility of the CSRT by generating
code-switching attack prompts with monolingual data. We finally conduct
detailed ablation studies exploring code-switching and propound unintended
correlation between resource availability of languages and safety alignment in
existing multilingual LLMs.Abstract
Recent Advances in Hate Speech Moderation: Multimodality and the Role of
Large Models
In the evolving landscape of online communication, moderating hate speech
(HS) presents an intricate challenge, compounded by the multimodal nature of
digital content. This comprehensive survey delves into the recent strides in HS
moderation, spotlighting the burgeoning role of large language models (LLMs)
and large multimodal models (LMMs). Our exploration begins with a thorough
analysis of current literature, revealing the nuanced interplay between
textual, visual, and auditory elements in propagating HS. We uncover a notable
trend towards integrating these modalities, primarily due to the complexity and
subtlety with which HS is disseminated. A significant emphasis is placed on the
advances facilitated by LLMs and LMMs, which have begun to redefine the
boundaries of detection and moderation capabilities. We identify existing gaps
in research, particularly in the context of underrepresented languages and
cultures, and the need for solutions to handle low-resource settings. The
survey concludes with a forward-looking perspective, outlining potential
avenues for future research, including the exploration of novel AI
methodologies, the ethical governance of AI in moderation, and the development
of more nuanced, context-aware systems. This comprehensive overview aims to
catalyze further research and foster a collaborative effort towards more
sophisticated, responsible, and human-centric approaches to HS moderation in
the digital era. WARNING: This paper contains offensive examples.Abstract
LLMs as Research Tools: A Large Scale Survey of Researchers' Usage and
Perceptions
The rise of large language models (LLMs) has led many researchers to consider
their usage for scientific work. Some have found benefits using LLMs to augment
or automate aspects of their research pipeline, while others have urged caution
due to risks and ethical concerns. Yet little work has sought to quantify and
characterize how researchers use LLMs and why. We present the first large-scale
survey of 816 verified research article authors to understand how the research
community leverages and perceives LLMs as research tools. We examine
participants' self-reported LLM usage, finding that 81% of researchers have
already incorporated LLMs into different aspects of their research workflow. We
also find that traditionally disadvantaged groups in academia (non-White,
junior, and non-native English speaking researchers) report higher LLM usage
and perceived benefits, suggesting potential for improved research equity.
However, women, non-binary, and senior researchers have greater ethical
concerns, potentially hindering adoption.Abstract
Benchmarking LLM Guardrails in Handling Multilingual Toxicity
arXiv:2410.22153v1 »Full PDF »With the ubiquity of Large Language Models (LLMs), guardrails have become
crucial to detect and defend against toxic content. However, with the
increasing pervasiveness of LLMs in multilingual scenarios, their effectiveness
in handling multilingual toxic inputs remains unclear. In this work, we
introduce a comprehensive multilingual test suite, spanning seven datasets and
over ten languages, to benchmark the performance of state-of-the-art
guardrails. We also investigates the resilience of guardrails against recent
jailbreaking techniques, and assess the impact of in-context safety policies
and language resource availability on guardrails' performance. Our findings
show that existing guardrails are still ineffective at handling multilingual
toxicity and lack robustness against jailbreaking prompts. This work aims to
identify the limitations of guardrails and to build a more reliable and
trustworthy LLMs in multilingual scenarios.Abstract
You Never Know: Quantization Induces Inconsistent Biases in
Vision-Language Foundation Models
Workshop paper at NeurIPS 2024 RBFM. 6 pages, 3 figures
We study the impact of a standard practice in compressing foundation
vision-language models - quantization - on the models' ability to produce
socially-fair outputs. In contrast to prior findings with unimodal models that
compression consistently amplifies social biases, our extensive evaluation of
four quantization settings across three datasets and three CLIP variants yields
a surprising result: while individual models demonstrate bias, we find no
consistent change in bias magnitude or direction across a population of
compressed models due to quantization.Abstract