How Value Induction Reshapes LLM Behaviour

Conversational Large Language Models are post-trained on language that expresses specific behavioural traits, such as curiosity, open-mindedness, and empathy, and values, such as helpfulness, harmlessness, and honesty. This is done to increase utility, ensure safety, and improve the experience of the people interacting with the model. However, values are complex and inter-related – inducing one could modify behaviour on another. Further, inducing certain values can make models more addictive or sycophantic through language used in the generations, with a potential detrimental effect on the…