@inproceedings{rrv-etal-2024-chaos,
title = "Chaos with Keywords: Exposing Large Language Models Sycophancy to Misleading Keywords and Evaluating Defense Strategies",
author = "Rrv, Aswin and
Tyagi, Nemika and
Uddin, Md Nayem and
Varshney, Neeraj and
Baral, Chitta",
editor = "Ku, Lun-Wei and
Martins, Andre and
Srikumar, Vivek",
booktitle = "Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics ACL 2024",
month = aug,
year = "2024",
address = "Bangkok, Thailand and virtual meeting",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-acl.755",
pages = "12717--12733",
abstract = "This study explores the sycophantic tendencies of Large Language Models (LLMs), where these models tend to provide answers that match what users want to hear, even if they are not entirely correct. The motivation behind this exploration stems from the common behavior observed in individuals searching the internet for facts with partial or misleading knowledge. Similar to using web search engines, users may recall fragments of misleading keywords and submit them to an LLM, hoping for a comprehensive response. Our empirical analysis of several LLMs shows the potential danger of these models amplifying misinformation when presented with misleading keywords. Additionally, we thoroughly assess four existing hallucination mitigation strategies to reduce LLMs sycophantic behavior. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of these strategies for generating factually correct statements. Furthermore, our analyses delve into knowledge-probing experiments on factual keywords and different categories of sycophancy mitigation.",
}
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<abstract>This study explores the sycophantic tendencies of Large Language Models (LLMs), where these models tend to provide answers that match what users want to hear, even if they are not entirely correct. The motivation behind this exploration stems from the common behavior observed in individuals searching the internet for facts with partial or misleading knowledge. Similar to using web search engines, users may recall fragments of misleading keywords and submit them to an LLM, hoping for a comprehensive response. Our empirical analysis of several LLMs shows the potential danger of these models amplifying misinformation when presented with misleading keywords. Additionally, we thoroughly assess four existing hallucination mitigation strategies to reduce LLMs sycophantic behavior. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of these strategies for generating factually correct statements. Furthermore, our analyses delve into knowledge-probing experiments on factual keywords and different categories of sycophancy mitigation.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Chaos with Keywords: Exposing Large Language Models Sycophancy to Misleading Keywords and Evaluating Defense Strategies
%A Rrv, Aswin
%A Tyagi, Nemika
%A Uddin, Md Nayem
%A Varshney, Neeraj
%A Baral, Chitta
%Y Ku, Lun-Wei
%Y Martins, Andre
%Y Srikumar, Vivek
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics ACL 2024
%D 2024
%8 August
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Bangkok, Thailand and virtual meeting
%F rrv-etal-2024-chaos
%X This study explores the sycophantic tendencies of Large Language Models (LLMs), where these models tend to provide answers that match what users want to hear, even if they are not entirely correct. The motivation behind this exploration stems from the common behavior observed in individuals searching the internet for facts with partial or misleading knowledge. Similar to using web search engines, users may recall fragments of misleading keywords and submit them to an LLM, hoping for a comprehensive response. Our empirical analysis of several LLMs shows the potential danger of these models amplifying misinformation when presented with misleading keywords. Additionally, we thoroughly assess four existing hallucination mitigation strategies to reduce LLMs sycophantic behavior. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of these strategies for generating factually correct statements. Furthermore, our analyses delve into knowledge-probing experiments on factual keywords and different categories of sycophancy mitigation.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-acl.755
%P 12717-12733
Markdown (Informal)
[Chaos with Keywords: Exposing Large Language Models Sycophancy to Misleading Keywords and Evaluating Defense Strategies](https://aclanthology.org/2024.findings-acl.755) (Rrv et al., Findings 2024)
ACL