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Data Poisoning in LLMs: Jailbreak-Tuning and Scaling Laws (arxiv.org)
1 point by pera on Jan 13, 2025 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: They tested 24 language models of different sizes by slipping small amounts of harmful text into their training data, including when moderation tools were on. Bigger models picked up the bad behavior faster and from less poisoned data than smaller ones.

Abstract · Scaling Trends for Data Poisoning in LLMs

LLMs produce harmful and undesirable behavior when trained on datasets containing even a small fraction of poisoned data. We demonstrate that GPT models remain vulnerable to fine-tuning on poisoned data, even when safeguarded by moderation systems. Given the persistence of data poisoning vulnerabilities in today's most capable models, this paper investigates whether these risks increase with model scaling. We evaluate three threat models -- malicious fine-tuning, imperfect data curation, and intentional data contamination -- across 24 frontier LLMs ranging from 1.5 to 72 billion parameters. Our experiments reveal that larger LLMs are significantly more susceptible to data poisoning, learning harmful behaviors from even minimal exposure to harmful data more quickly than smaller models. These findings underscore the need for leading AI companies to thoroughly red team fine-tuning APIs before public release and to develop more robust safeguards against data poisoning, particularly as models continue to scale in size and capability.

Dillon Bowen, Brendan Murphy, Will Cai, David Khachaturov, Adam Gleave, Kellin Pelrine
arXiv:2408.02946 · cs.CR, cs.AI, cs.LG · submitted Aug 6, 2024 · updated Jul 17, 2025
abstract · pdf · html · This arXiv version of the paper originally included an initial investigation of jailbreak-tuning, which can produce 60+ percentage point increases in vulnerability elicitation compared with standard data poisoning. Jailbreak-tuning has now been separated into a full independent paper, which can be found at arXiv:2507.11630

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