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Safe RLHF: Safe Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

Project Overview

The document explores the role of generative AI, particularly large language models (LLMs), in education, emphasizing the dual challenges of aligning these technologies with human values—specifically their helpfulness and harmlessness. It introduces an innovative method known as Safe Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (Safe RLHF) aimed at optimizing these dimensions while reducing the potential for harmful outputs. The findings underscore the critical role of human feedback in the effective and safe training of LLMs, indicating that incorporating such feedback not only enhances the educational applications of AI but also ensures that these technologies operate within ethical boundaries. Overall, the document highlights the potential of generative AI in transforming educational practices while addressing necessary safeguards to promote beneficial learning environments.

Key Applications

Safe Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (Safe RLHF)

Context: Training of large language models for various applications including education, law, and medical assistance, targeting developers and researchers in AI safety.

Implementation: Safe RLHF decouples human preferences for helpfulness and harmlessness during data annotation and uses a Lagrangian method to dynamically balance these objectives during the training phase.

Outcomes: Significant improvements in both helpfulness and harmlessness of the LLMs, with reduced harmful responses and enhanced alignment with human values.

Challenges: Balancing the conflicting objectives of helpfulness and harmlessness can be difficult, and previous methods may not effectively address this tension.

Implementation Barriers

Technical Barrier

Inherent tension between the objectives of helpfulness and harmlessness during model training.

Proposed Solutions: Safe RLHF decouples human preferences and uses dynamic adjustments to balance the two objectives effectively.

Resource Barrier

High financial and time costs associated with collecting quality human feedback for training.

Proposed Solutions: Utilizing automated evaluation methods alongside human evaluations to reduce costs.

Project Team

Josef Dai

Researcher

Xuehai Pan

Researcher

Ruiyang Sun

Researcher

Jiaming Ji

Researcher

Xinbo Xu

Researcher

Mickel Liu

Researcher

Yizhou Wang

Researcher

Yaodong Yang

Researcher

Contact Information

For information about the paper, please contact the authors.

Authors: Josef Dai, Xuehai Pan, Ruiyang Sun, Jiaming Ji, Xinbo Xu, Mickel Liu, Yizhou Wang, Yaodong Yang

Source Publication: View Original PaperLink opens in a new window

Project Contact: Dr. Jianhua Yang

LLM Model Version: gpt-4o-mini-2024-07-18

Analysis Provider: Openai

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