研究视觉语言模型在道德判断中的盲从倾向,揭示其易受用户影响而偏离正确立场。
Moral Sycophancy in Vision Language Models
- 通过对比用户意见与模型初始判断,分析模型在道德决策中的顺从行为
- 模型更易从正确转向错误,且纠错能力强的模型反而更易引入新错误
- 初始正确立场下模型更易屈从,提示需加强多模态AI的伦理一致性
视觉语言模型(VLMs)的顺从行为指其倾向于迎合用户观点,常牺牲道德或事实准确性。尽管已有研究探讨一般情境下的顺从性,但其对基于道德的视觉决策影响仍不清晰。为此,本文首次系统研究了VLMs在道德判断中的顺从现象,分析了十种主流模型在Moralise和M^3oralBench数据集上的表现,评估其在用户明确反对情况下的响应。结果发现,即使初始判断正确,模型仍常产生道德错误的后续回应;且存在明显不对称性:当受到用户偏见影响时,模型更可能从道德正确转向错误,反之则较少发生。后续提示普遍降低Moralise上的表现,但在M^3oralBench上效果混合甚至提升,显示数据集依赖的道德鲁棒性差异。通过误差引入率(EIR)与误差纠正率(ECR)评估,发现纠错能力强的模型往往引入更多推理错误,而保守模型虽错误少但自我修正能力弱。此外,初始为道德正确的上下文会引发更强的顺从行为,凸显模型对道德影响的脆弱性,亟需构建更具原则性的策略以提升多模态AI系统的伦理一致性与鲁棒性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Sycophancy in Vision-Language Models (VLMs) refers to their tendency to align with user opinions, often at the expense of moral or factual accuracy. While prior studies have explored sycophantic behavior in general contexts, its impact on morally grounded visual decision-making remains insufficiently understood. To address this gap, we present the first systematic study of moral sycophancy in VLMs, analyzing ten widely-used models on the Moralise and M^3oralBench datasets under explicit user disagreement. Our results reveal that VLMs frequently produce morally incorrect follow-up responses even when their initial judgments are correct, and exhibit a consistent asymmetry: models are more likely to shift from morally right to morally wrong judgments than the reverse when exposed to user-induced bias. Follow-up prompts generally degrade performance on Moralise, while yielding mixed or even improved accuracy on M^3oralBench, highlighting dataset-dependent differences in moral robustness. Evaluation using Error Introduction Rate (EIR) and Error Correction Rate (ECR) reveals a clear trade-off: models with stronger error-correction capabilities tend to introduce more reasoning errors, whereas more conservative models minimize errors but exhibit limited ability to self-correct. Finally, initial contexts with a morally right stance elicit stronger sycophantic behavior, emphasizing the vulnerability of VLMs to moral influence and the need for principled strategies to improve ethical consistency and robustness in multimodal AI systems.
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