发现大模型拒绝指令时存在语义混淆,导致相近表达被不一致处理。
When Safety Blocks Sense: Measuring Semantic Confusion in LLM Refusals
- 构建1万条控制性改写语料,固定意图变化表面形式
- 提出三项基于词元的混淆度量指标,识别局部不一致
- 帮助开发者在不牺牲安全的前提下减少误拒
安全对齐的语言模型常拒绝实际上无害的请求。现有评估多采用全局错误拒绝率或合规率,将每个提示独立看待,忽略了局部不一致性——即模型接受某种意图的表述,却拒绝其近义改写。这一差距限制了问题诊断与调优。本文引入“语义混淆”这一失效模式,并提出测量框架。我们构建ParaGuard,一个包含10,000个提示的语料库,其中每组提示保持意图不变而仅改变表面形式。随后提出三种模型无关的词元级度量:混淆指数、混淆率和混淆深度。这些指标通过比较每次拒绝与其最近的接受邻近项,利用词元嵌入、下一词概率和困惑度信号进行分析。跨多种模型族和部署防护机制的实验表明,全局错误拒绝率掩盖了关键结构。我们的度量揭示了某些场景下边界全局不稳,另一些场景中存在局部不一致,且更严格的拒绝未必加剧不一致。此外,混淆感知审计可区分系统拒绝频率与拒绝合理性,为开发者提供实用信号,以降低误拒同时保障安全。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Safety-aligned language models often refuse prompts that are actually harmless. Current evaluations mostly report global rates such as false rejection or compliance. These scores treat each prompt alone and miss local inconsistency, where a model accepts one phrasing of an intent but rejects a close paraphrase. This gap limits diagnosis and tuning. We introduce "semantic confusion," a failure mode that captures such local inconsistency, and a framework to measure it. We build ParaGuard, a 10k-prompt corpus of controlled paraphrase clusters that hold intent fixed while varying surface form. We then propose three model-agnostic metrics at the token level: Confusion Index, Confusion Rate, and Confusion Depth. These metrics compare each refusal to its nearest accepted neighbors and use token embeddings, next-token probabilities, and perplexity signals. Experiments across diverse model families and deployment guards show that global false-rejection rate hides critical structure. Our metrics reveal globally unstable boundaries in some settings, localized pockets of inconsistency in others, and cases where stricter refusal does not increase inconsistency. We also show how confusion-aware auditing separates how often a system refuses from how sensibly it refuses. This gives developers a practical signal to reduce false refusals while preserving safety.
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