2024/12/17 by Keltin Grimes, Grimes, Keltin, Monica Christiani +5 · 3 citations
Computer Science · #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Machine Learning (cs.LG) #Natural Language Processing Techniques #Topic Modeling
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.13341
openalex publication_date 2024/12/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Model editing methods modify specific behaviors of Large Language Models by altering a small, targeted set of network weights and require very little data and compute. These methods can be used for malicious applications such as inserting misinformation or simple trojans that result in adversary-specified behaviors when a trigger word is present. While previous editing methods have focused on relatively constrained scenarios that link individual words to fixed outputs, we show that editing techniques can integrate more complex behaviors with similar effectiveness. We develop Concept-ROT, a model editing-based method that efficiently inserts trojans which not only exhibit complex output behaviors, but also trigger on high-level concepts -- presenting an entirely new class of trojan attacks. Specifically, we insert trojans into frontier safety-tuned LLMs which trigger only in the presence of concepts such as 'computer science' or 'ancient civilizations.' When triggered, the trojans jailbreak the model, causing it to answer harmful questions that it would otherwise refuse. Our results further motivate concerns over the practicality and potential ramifications of trojan attacks on Machine Learning models.