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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Truthfulness in Large Language Models

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Large language models (LLMs) have been experiencing a rapid rise in utility, accessibility, and popularity, but there are still many areas in which they can improve. One such area for improvement is their truthfulness. We seek to improve the truthfulness of LLMs by probing their internal representations. We find that a linear probe on the last hidden layer representation is able to improve a model’s accuracy by reducing its confidence in incorrect answers. However, this probe is less effective at perturbing the model to change its behavior and driving the model towards correct answers.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2023

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Liu, Kevin
Advisors dc:contributor.advisor
  • Andreas, Jacob
  • Hadfield-Menell, Dylan

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
  • Copyright retained by author(s)

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151345
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/151345

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Liu, Kevin. Truthfulness in Large Language Models. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2023. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151345