Exploring Multilingual Concepts of Human Value in Large Language Models: Is Value Alignment Consistent, Transferable and Controllable across Languages?

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Main Authors: Xu, Shaoyang, Dong, Weilong, Guo, Zishan, Wu, Xinwei, Xiong, Deyi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Xu, Shaoyang
Dong, Weilong
Guo, Zishan
Wu, Xinwei
Xiong, Deyi
author_facet Xu, Shaoyang
Dong, Weilong
Guo, Zishan
Wu, Xinwei
Xiong, Deyi
contents Prior research has revealed that certain abstract concepts are linearly represented as directions in the representation space of LLMs, predominantly centered around English. In this paper, we extend this investigation to a multilingual context, with a specific focus on human values-related concepts (i.e., value concepts) due to their significance for AI safety. Through our comprehensive exploration covering 7 types of human values, 16 languages and 3 LLM series with distinct multilinguality (e.g., monolingual, bilingual and multilingual), we first empirically confirm the presence of value concepts within LLMs in a multilingual format. Further analysis on the cross-lingual characteristics of these concepts reveals 3 traits arising from language resource disparities: cross-lingual inconsistency, distorted linguistic relationships, and unidirectional cross-lingual transfer between high- and low-resource languages, all in terms of value concepts. Moreover, we validate the feasibility of cross-lingual control over value alignment capabilities of LLMs, leveraging the dominant language as a source language. Ultimately, recognizing the significant impact of LLMs' multilinguality on our results, we consolidate our findings and provide prudent suggestions on the composition of multilingual data for LLMs pre-training.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_18120
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploring Multilingual Concepts of Human Value in Large Language Models: Is Value Alignment Consistent, Transferable and Controllable across Languages?
Xu, Shaoyang
Dong, Weilong
Guo, Zishan
Wu, Xinwei
Xiong, Deyi
Computation and Language
Prior research has revealed that certain abstract concepts are linearly represented as directions in the representation space of LLMs, predominantly centered around English. In this paper, we extend this investigation to a multilingual context, with a specific focus on human values-related concepts (i.e., value concepts) due to their significance for AI safety. Through our comprehensive exploration covering 7 types of human values, 16 languages and 3 LLM series with distinct multilinguality (e.g., monolingual, bilingual and multilingual), we first empirically confirm the presence of value concepts within LLMs in a multilingual format. Further analysis on the cross-lingual characteristics of these concepts reveals 3 traits arising from language resource disparities: cross-lingual inconsistency, distorted linguistic relationships, and unidirectional cross-lingual transfer between high- and low-resource languages, all in terms of value concepts. Moreover, we validate the feasibility of cross-lingual control over value alignment capabilities of LLMs, leveraging the dominant language as a source language. Ultimately, recognizing the significant impact of LLMs' multilinguality on our results, we consolidate our findings and provide prudent suggestions on the composition of multilingual data for LLMs pre-training.
title Exploring Multilingual Concepts of Human Value in Large Language Models: Is Value Alignment Consistent, Transferable and Controllable across Languages?
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.18120