Backdoor Attacks for In-Context Learning with Language Models
Date: 2023-07
Affected: GPT-Neo, OPT, Pythia (1.3B-6B)
Attack vector: backdoor
Category: research
Severity: High

Kandpal et al. backdoor 1.3B-6B-parameter LLMs so they emit targeted misclassifications when in-context demonstrations contain a trigger, even across varied prompting strategies. Prompt-engineering defenses are insufficient.


Mitigations:

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):