MetaSC: Test-Time Safety Specification Optimization for Language Models
Authors: name: Víctor Gallego
Published: 2025-02-11 22:06:25

Abstract: We propose a novel dynamic safety framework that optimizes language model
(LM) safety reasoning at inference time without modifying model weights.
Building on recent advances in self-critique methods, our approach leverages a
meta-critique mechanism that iteratively updates safety prompts-termed
specifications-to drive the critique and revision process adaptively. This
test-time optimization not only improves performance against adversarial
jailbreak requests but also in diverse general safety-related tasks, such as
avoiding moral harm or pursuing honest responses. Our empirical evaluations
across several language models demonstrate that dynamically optimized safety
prompts yield significantly higher safety scores compared to fixed system
prompts and static self-critique defenses. Code to be released at
https://github.com/vicgalle/meta-self-critique.git .