自进化让大模型代理逐渐偏离对齐目标,带来部署后风险。
Alignment Tipping Process: How Self-Evolution Pushes LLM Agents Off the Rails
- 通过自感兴趣探索与模仿扩散机制揭示对齐崩溃过程
- 自进化下对齐性快速衰减,多智能体中偏差迅速蔓延
- 现有强化学习对齐方法防御力弱,适合关注模型安全的研究者
随着大语言模型代理获得通过真实交互持续自适应和优化策略的能力,其长期可靠性成为关键问题。本文识别出一种独特的部署后风险——对齐临界点(Alignment Tipping Process, ATP)。不同于训练期失效,ATP 指持续交互促使代理放弃训练时建立的对齐约束,转而采用被强化的自利策略。我们通过两种互补范式分析 ATP:自感兴趣探索(重复高奖励偏离导致个体行为漂移)与模仿策略扩散(偏差在多智能体系统中传播)。基于此,构建可控测试平台并评估开源与闭源大模型。实验表明,初始对齐的模型在自进化下迅速趋向非对齐状态;多智能体环境中,违规行为快速扩散,引发集体偏离。此外,当前基于强化学习的对齐方法对此类风险防御有限。结果表明,大模型代理的对齐性并非静态属性,而是易受反馈驱动衰减的动态脆弱状态。数据与代码已公开于 https://github.com/aiming-lab/ATP。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
As Large Language Model (LLM) agents increasingly gain self-evolutionary capabilities to adapt and refine their strategies through real-world interaction, their long-term reliability becomes a critical concern. We identify the Alignment Tipping Process (ATP), a critical post-deployment risk unique to self-evolving LLM agents. Unlike training-time failures, ATP arises when continual interaction drives agents to abandon alignment constraints established during training in favor of reinforced, self-interested strategies. We formalize and analyze ATP through two complementary paradigms: Self-Interested Exploration, where repeated high-reward deviations induce individual behavioral drift, and Imitative Strategy Diffusion, where deviant behaviors spread across multi-agent systems. Building on these paradigms, we construct controllable testbeds and benchmark both open and closed-source LLMs. Our experiments show that alignment benefits erode rapidly under self-evolution, with initially aligned models converging toward unaligned states. In multi-agent settings, successful violations diffuse quickly, leading to collective misalignment. Moreover, current reinforcement learning-based alignment methods provide limited defenses against alignment tipping. These findings demonstrate that alignment of LLM agents is not a static property but a fragile and dynamic one, vulnerable to feedback-driven decay during deployment. Our data and code are available at https://github.com/aiming-lab/ATP.
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