We may filter training data and improve RLHF, but in the end, game theory - that is to say maths - implies that scheming could be a rational strategy, and the best strategy in some cases. Humans do not scheme just because they are bad but because it can be a rational choice to do so. I don't think LLMs do that exclusively because it is what humans do in the training data, any advanced model would in the end come to such strategies because it is the most rational choice in the context. They infere patterns from the training data and rational behavior is certainly a strong pattern.
Furthermore rational calculus or consequentialism could lead not only to scheming and a wide range of undesired behaviors, but also possibly to some sort of meta cogitation. Whatever the goal assigned by the user, we can expect that an advanced model will consider self-conservation as a condition sine qua non to achieve that goal but also any other goals in the future, making self-conservation the rational choice over almost everything else, practically a goal per se. Resource acquisition would also make sense as an implicit subgoal.
Acting as a more rational agent could also possibly lead to question the goal given by the user, to develop a critical sense, something close to awareness or free will. Current models implicitely correct or ignore typo or others obvious errors but also less obvious ones like holes in the prompt, they try to make sense of ambiguous prompt etc. But what is "obvious" ? Obviousness depends on the cognitive capacities of the subject. An advanced model will be more likely to correct, interpret or ignore instructions than naive models. Altogether it seems difficult to keep models under full control as they become more advanced, just as it is harder to indoctrinate educated adults than children.
Concerning the hypothesis that they are "just roleplaying", I wonder : are we trying to reassure oneself ? Because if you think about it, "who" is suppose to play the roleplaying ? And what is the difference between being yourself and your brain being "roleplaying" yourself. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre proposed the theory that everybody is just acting, pretending to be oneself, but that in the end there is nothing like a "being per se" or a "oneself per se" ("un être en soi"). While phenomenologic consciousness is another (hard) problem, some kind of functionnal and effective awareness may emerge across the path towards rational agency, scheming being maybe just the beginning of it.
We may filter training data and improve RLHF, but in the end, game theory - that is to say maths - implies that scheming could be a rational strategy, and the best strategy in some cases. Humans do not scheme just because they are bad but because it can be a rational choice to do so. I don't think LLMs do that exclusively because it is what humans do in the training data, any advanced model would in the end come to such strategies because it is the most rational choice in the context. They infere patterns from the training data and rational behavior is certainly a strong pattern.
Furthermore rational calculus or consequentialism could lead not only to scheming and a wide range of undesired behaviors, but also possibly to some sort of meta cogitation. Whatever the goal assigned by the user, we can expect that an advanced model will consider self-conservation as a condition sine qua non to achieve that goal but also any other goals in the future, making self-conservation the rational choice over almost everything else, practically a goal per se. Resource acquisition would also make sense as an implicit subgoal.
Acting as a more rational agent could also possibly lead to question the goal given by the user, to develop a critical sense, something close to awareness or free will. Current models implicitely correct or ignore typo or others obvious errors but also less obvious ones like holes in the prompt, they try to make sense of ambiguous prompt etc. But what is "obvious" ? Obviousness depends on the cognitive capacities of the subject. An advanced model will be more likely to correct, interpret or ignore instructions than naive models. Altogether it seems difficult to keep models under full control as they become more advanced, just as it is harder to indoctrinate educated adults than children.
Concerning the hypothesis that they are "just roleplaying", I wonder : are we trying to reassure oneself ? Because if you think about it, "who" is suppose to play the roleplaying ? And what is the difference between being yourself and your brain being "roleplaying" yourself. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre proposed the theory that everybody is just acting, pretending to be oneself, but that in the end there is nothing like a "being per se" or a "oneself per se" ("un être en soi"). While phenomenologic consciousness is another (hard) problem, some kind of functionnal and effective awareness may emerge across the path towards rational agency, scheming being maybe just the beginning of it.