Trustworthy LLMs: a Survey and Guideline for Evaluating Large Language
  Models' Alignment
Authors: name: Yang Liu; name: Yuanshun Yao; name: Jean-Francois Ton; name: Xiaoying Zhang; name: Ruocheng Guo Hao Cheng; name: Yegor Klochkov; name: Muhammad Faaiz Taufiq; name: Hang Li
Published: 2023-08-10 06:43:44

Abstract: Ensuring alignment, which refers to making models behave in accordance with
human intentions [1,2], has become a critical task before deploying large
language models (LLMs) in real-world applications. For instance, OpenAI devoted
six months to iteratively aligning GPT-4 before its release [3]. However, a
major challenge faced by practitioners is the lack of clear guidance on
evaluating whether LLM outputs align with social norms, values, and
regulations. This obstacle hinders systematic iteration and deployment of LLMs.
To address this issue, this paper presents a comprehensive survey of key
dimensions that are crucial to consider when assessing LLM trustworthiness. The
survey covers seven major categories of LLM trustworthiness: reliability,
safety, fairness, resistance to misuse, explainability and reasoning, adherence
to social norms, and robustness. Each major category is further divided into
several sub-categories, resulting in a total of 29 sub-categories.
Additionally, a subset of 8 sub-categories is selected for further
investigation, where corresponding measurement studies are designed and
conducted on several widely-used LLMs. The measurement results indicate that,
in general, more aligned models tend to perform better in terms of overall
trustworthiness. However, the effectiveness of alignment varies across the
different trustworthiness categories considered. This highlights the importance
of conducting more fine-grained analyses, testing, and making continuous
improvements on LLM alignment. By shedding light on these key dimensions of LLM
trustworthiness, this paper aims to provide valuable insights and guidance to
practitioners in the field. Understanding and addressing these concerns will be
crucial in achieving reliable and ethically sound deployment of LLMs in various
applications.